1. 1. Seek Whatif? Research Why? Discover How? Explore Where?
2. 2. Be an Explorer ii
3. 3. Be an Explorer iii Table of Contents Introduction. iii A Special Place for Butterflies 1 Where Has the Flu Gone? .. 4 Healthy Foods For All .8 Introduction Geography can help you understand your community, your city, state, country and world. By starting to explore just a small part of your hometown, you will begin to ask questions about the area - Why? Where? How? What if? And by using geographic tools, like maps, you will be able to discover the answers to those questions. The three exercises in this booklet will start you on your way to geographic exploration. Using the geographic tools and information described in each exercise, you will begin to explore your community. You will learn: what butterflies are native to your community and what plants you will need to plant in your butterfly garden; find out why the flu spread through your community and school and how you may be able to help prevent the spread during next years flu season; discover how many people have healthy foods to eat on a regular basis in your hometown; and, you can also ask what if all people in my community had healthy foods every day how would this change my community. After completing all the exercises you can then create ways to apply the same methods and questions to larger areas. Get ready to explore and have fun with geography and maps!
4. 4. Be an Explorer 1 Be an Explorer Fun with Geography and Maps Exercise 1: A Special Place for Butterflies Using Geography and maps to build your own butterfly garden By using some geography and map skills, some gardening tools and a little bit of creativity, you can build your own butterfly garden. A special place where you can spend time on a nice summer day watching as the butterflies flutter around the flowers, a joy to behold for all. But where do you begin? The first step in building your butterfly garden is to find out what type of butterflies occur naturally in the area or have been living there for many years. These areas provide just the right growing conditions where the butterflies' favorite plants can survive. The plants are also native to the area. Scientists have collected much information about what kind of plants each type of butterfly likes and they have used maps to help show where
5. 5. Be an Explorer 2 all the different types of butterflies live. This is a type of geography known as biogeography. By using these maps you can find out what butterflies are native to your city and you can also use the maps to help in choosing the right plants to grow that will help attract these butterflies to your garden. For example, in Charlotte, North Carolina on native butterfly in the Red-spotted Purple butterfly. This butterfly enjoys eating the small white flowers of the privet plant. The privet plant is also native to North Carolina. It can be easily grown in a butterfly garden and would feed and entice the Red-spotted Purple butterfly to visit this garden created in Charlotte, North Carolina. Once you have discovered what types of butterflies live in your hometown and the type of plants they like, it's time to be creative and design your butterfly garden. Butterfly gardens can be made in any shape and size. You need to decide where the garden will be located and how much room there is. Perhaps you can add some of the butterflies' favorite plants to a flowerbed that is already established, or maybe there is a natural area in the yard where the plants could easily be planted for the butterflies. Both places would be great sites for your butterfly garden. If you don't have a yard, butterfly gardens can be made in a plant pot or a flower box. These small, unique gardens are especially nice placed by a window. Maybe you could put it by your bedroom window so that it is the first thing you see in the morning. After you have decided where to put the garden and know how much room you have for planting, the next step is to decide on how many plants you
6. 6. Be an Explorer 3 would like to have in the garden and start planting. You may want to put taller plants in the back so the smaller plants can be easily seen. You may also like to group the plants by color or mix them for a fun, festive look. But you don't need to worry too much about the order the plants are placed in the garden or their color arrangement. As long as they are the butterflies' favorites plants, the butterflies will be delighted to visit your garden. Exercise 2: Where Has the Flu Gone?
7. 7. Be an Explorer 4 Geography and maps can help track the spread of diseases Achoo, cough, cough, sniff, sniff ... achoo! Oh my aching head! Sounds like someone may have the flu. If you do, how did you get it and where does it go when it leaves? By using geography and maps and some detective skills, you can answer these questions. To begin our investigation, we must first know what the flu is. The flu, or influenza, is a virus that infects your respiratory system. Symptoms of the flu include sudden onset of coughing, runny nose, sneezing, fever, body aches, and tiredness. The second step in our investigation is to determine how we catch, or contract, the flu. We usually get the flu during the winter months but we can also catch the flu during other seasons as well. The flu virus is spread person to person. During the peak flu months, January through March, there are many people carrying flu germs. If you cough or sneeze you may be spreading flu germs without even knowing it. While at school, playing in the playground, at the mall, or at home, germs are easily spread from person to person by being in close contact with one another and sometimes even by using the same items like cell phones and IPods. By using geography and maps we can track the spread of the flu germs. Geographers and health professionals use sophisticated software called geographic information systems or GIS, to help map flu outbreaks. By monitoring the number of people that are reported to the local public health departments diagnosed with the flu,
8. 8. Be an Explorer 5 health geographers and other health professionals can map the location of the patients. By mapping the locations of all the sick people geographers are able to see where the highest concentrations of flu patients are located. With the help of the local health departments they are able to notify doctors offices about the increase in the number of patients in their communities. With this information the health departments and medical offices can help their communities be better prepared against the spread of the flu. Geographers can also track the purchase of over-the-counter medications and other related items at local pharmacies. These include items such as cold medicines, tissues, and cough medicines. After adding this layer of information to their GIS map, they can pinpoint areas that have a higher number of sales of these products, indicating that the flu may be spreading in that area. There are many websites that provide us the ability to track the spread of the flu. If you are planning a trip during the peak flu season, you can access these websites and see what the potential is of contracting the flu where you are going. By knowing this you can take precautions during your trip. Lets take one school day for an example of how, using our knowledge of geography and mapping, we can map the spread of flu germs within our own communities. Think about your day from beginning to end. How did you get to school, walk, by car, school bus or bike? Did you stop along the way? If you did, what did you touch or pick up? What did you do when you first arrived at school?
9. 9. Be an Explorer 6 Now, lets map our movement for the day. On a sheet of paper, draw a map of the route from your home to school and add any stops along the way and any time you may have touched someone or some item. Next, map your movement through your school. Perhaps your first stop was at your locker. Did you touch your locker? How about your neighbors or friends locker? Did you share a drink or look at photos on your friends cell phone? Add that information to your map. Map your moves through the cafeteria and places that you sat and where you talked with your friends. Did you share food or a drink with someone? Make a list of all your family and friends you spent time with during the day. Check to see if anyone on your list is now sick. What kind of contact did you have with them? Weve completed our map of one school day activities. So what can we do to help prevent the spread of the flu? For this season, just by increasing the number of times you wash your hands, you can help reduce the spread of the virus and catching it yourself. You can also make sure to cover your mouth when you sneeze or cough - cough or sneeze into your sleeve! If you know someone that has the flu, its better to stay away from them until they are well so not to catch the flu and spread it further. By tracking our steps and movement for one day, we can see all the potential places where flu germs are easily spread. By using this information and your map, for the next flu season perhaps you can help with a school campaign to educate your classmates on what steps they can take to help prevent the spread of the flu.
10. 10. Be an Explorer 7 Exercise 3: Healthy Foods for All
11. 11. Be an Explorer 8 How easy is it for people in your community to buy fresh healthy foods. Fresh fruits, vegetables, dairy, and meat are the stables for a healthy diet, and they taste good! But many people in the United States do not have places to buy fresh foods. By using geography and maps we can locate the places in our communities that sell these foods. And also, we can see how easy it is for us to get to, or access, these healthy providers in our neighborhoods. Through this exercise, we will define what types of places provide fresh foods, draw a map of our local neighborhood and locate on the map the sources in our neighborhood where we can find these foods. In addition, we will determine how easy it is to get to the food sources; could we walk or ride our bikes there; is there public transportation available, like buses, or do we need to have a car (and driver!). First, lets draw a map of the neighborhood that we want to investigate. Lets look at the area between your house and school. If you can draw the map from memory, go ahead! Others may want to use map sources, like your local city or town website to get an accurate map of the area. Make sure to include on your map the street or road networks because we will need these to help determine how we can access the sources for fresh foods. So what types of places could you find fresh fruits, vegetables, dairy and meat products in your community? One of the first places to investigate would be your
12. 12. Be an Explorer 9 neighborhood grocery stores. Most grocery stores sell fresh foods, which they keep in stock so that they are readily available for purchase. In many cases this would also include fruits and vegetables grown by local farmers a great source of healthy foods! We can add our favorite neighborhood grocery stores to our map. There may be more than one grocery store that is convenient to your house. Add all to your map. Our next source of fresh foods to investigate would be local farmers markets; a market area for local farmers to sell their produce. To find a listing of farmers markets in your community, you can contact the state Department of Agriculture. Depending on the size of the market, you will not only find fresh, locally grown fruits and vegetables, but fresh eggs, cheese, and home made baked goods! So now lets add the farmers markets to our map. These are two types of places to buy fresh foods. There are other sources as well. Many people grow their own fruits and vegetables in their own gardens. For those who do not have enough space for their own garden, some cities and towns offer space for community gardens. Not only will they grow their own fresh foods, but, by being a member of a community garden, members may be able to swap their harvest with other members, providing opportunities for each member to try new and different varieties of foods. Your city or town should provide a listing of community gardens. Additional sources for community gardens would be local garden clubs. Now we can add the garden areas to our map. Try to locate as many home gardens as you can between your house and your school. It will be fun to see how many of your
13. 13. Be an Explorer 10 neighbors grow some of their own food. Perhaps you could start a community food exchange in the neighborhood. Keep in mind that some gardens could be very small. If your community offers community garden areas, you can now add those to your map. Now that we have located and placed on our maps, four sources of fresh food, we need to look at how easy it is to reach these places. Gardens in our yards are quite easy to access, so they are very good sources for fresh fruits and vegetables. We dont need anything but our garden shoes to reach our backyard gardens! Grocery stores, farmers markets, and community gardens may be a little more difficult to reach. Your neighborhood may only have one grocery store and it may not be a good source for fresh foods. Also, there may not be any farmers markets or community gardens within the area, but the neighboring community may offer better sources. But to reach them you may need to have a car or public transportation. By visiting the local town/city websites, you can add to your map bus and/or train routes for the area. By adding these routes to your map, you will be able to see if there are public transportation lines that you can use to access grocery stores, farmers markets or community gardens. Can you think of other information that would be helpful to your map? How about bike paths and sidewalks? Bike paths and sidewalks in our neighborhoods make it much easier and safer for us to get our healthy foods. Try adding these to your map. Sidewalks may be found on the local town/city website. For bike paths, you can look at the state or county parks and recreation website.
14. 14. Be an Explorer 11 Determine what is the best source of healthy foods in your neighborhood. Is it the closest or would having some public transportation or car allow better access to healthy food sources? After you complete your map, perhaps you can share your information with a friend and help them locate healthy food sources in their neighborhoods and compare your results. Bon appetit!