Conflict article in the New Internationalist

Year 8 will be exploring the idea of War and Conflict this year.
This was a popular unit last year, and will be repeated with a few small additions and tweaks based on feedback from students.
One issue related to the idea of conflict is the way that it is portrayed in the media. How many 'hidden' wars and conflicts are there going on in the world today ?


This New Internationalist article explores an important question, which is why some conflicts seem to get more media coverage than others.

The New Internationalist is also now available as an iPad app. I met one of the publishers from the journal at the EuroGeo conference in Bruges earlier this year. It's a journal I've been using as a teacher for many years. The first time I saw a Peters projection map was a special issue of the NI.

Consider this comment from the NI article as a 'provocation piece' to start your thinking...

Wars in Africa are of little interest to the West because they are happening to people too far away, who are too different, living in countries that are not ‘important’ enough 
Discuss...

Geography of Conflict

I've just 'dropped' the nuclear bomb that was used on the Japanese city of Nagasaki...
I dropped it close to the library of my new school...
Nuke Map 3D uses the Google Earth plugin to visualise the impact of different sizes of devices on a location of your choice...
A little macabre perhaps, but the site visualises the area that would have been destroyed by the fireball and air blast that accompanied the detonation of the bomb.

Year 8 will be exploring the Geography of Conflict in the Michaelmas Term, and this use of mapping helps to visualise the scale of some of the weapons that have been used in previous conflicts.
How else does conflict impact on the geography of places ?

That's what we'll be exploring, and I'll share some of the outcomes here...