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Geography is Anything But Boring!
Have you ever thought about where our basic food comes from? Have your kids ever asked you about it? Just about every time I go to the grocery store, I think about how grateful I am for our farmers who grow all this stuff we eat – the wonderful abundance of fruit, veggies and grains (especially organic!) we have to choose from. I think we all take for granted the work others do to make sure we have healthy food to eat! I grow a few tomato plants in buckets every year and know how much works goes into that. So I can surely appreciate what it takes to feed the world!
One great way to explore the world with your kids is to learn about crop production. The US Department of Agriculture offers some great tables that list crop production from countries all around the world.
http://www.cksinfo.com
I learned some interesting things:
- The US produces the most corn, but India produces a lot more cotton than we do.
- India produces about 66% more rice than China.
- There is a lot of peanut production in the nations of Sub Sahara Africa.
- The US leads the world in soybean production.
- Russia produces more wheat than the US, but India produces more than Russia.
If you look at the data with your children, talk about the reasons different countries grow more of a crop than other countries do. (Climate, population, land size). Discuss how we all help each other out by supplying food with others.
With Thanksgiving just one week away, this is a great time for us all to be thankful for our food!
Quick! Look at a map of the USA. Can you immediately find:
http://free-stock-photos.com
- Lake Huron
- Washington DC
- The Missouri River
- 3 states that are home to Yellowstone National Park
- New York City
- Lake Okeechobee
- Lake Tahoe
- The Grand Canyon
- Mount Rushmore
- 4 states containing Rocky Mountain National Park
Click here to read an interesting article by my expert Geographer friend, Dr. Joseph Kerski. Mapping and Analyzing our Changing World. No one knows more about mapping software than Dr. K! If you are unfamiliar with the educational mapping software available today, you have no idea what you are missing! It is fascinating and so incredibly educational.
Me & Dr. Kerski at the NCGE National Conference in San Juan
