Open-Source Geography

Below is a list of Geography term paper titles generated by students at Piedmont Virginia Community College. These selected titles were chosen because the students that prepared them approached the topic from a personal level while applying the geographic principles we learned in class. They acted like Geographers:

1. Internet Infrastructure: The Tangled Web We Weave - M. Murphy
2. The Geographic Variation of Tattooing Technology - C. Motley
3. Globalizing “Miller Time”: Industrial Location of the American Beer Industry - S. Oberhauser
4. The Geography of Golf: Conquering the World and the Environment - S. McKeown
5. The Changing Political Landscape of Post-Katrina New Orleans - K. Kiss
6. The Spatial Diffusion of Reggeaton - J.Cortez
7. A Nursing Shortage in The United States - P. Catlett
8. The Geography of the Hearing Impaired - C. Rosenberry
9. The Geography of Jazz -J. Pleasant
10. The Geography of Counter-Stike: A Global Phenomenon - M. Murphy
11. The Dances of North Africa and the Middle East - J. Jackson
12. Cancer Incidence Around the World - J. Stathos
13. The Geography of Beatlemania: The Atlantic Echo-Chamber - M. Schaeder
14. Disparity of Internet Access in Urban and Rural America - P. Thompson
15. Invaded Country: The Pre-September 11 Military Invasions of Afghanistan - T. Lacy
16. A Cultural Geography of the Diffusion of Opera - J. Slohada
17. The Geographic Signficance of High School Drop Out Rates - D. Bryant
18. The Ukrainian Diaspora: One Family’s Journey - F. Bakke
19. The Forum of Sao Paulo: a 2005 Assessment of Communism’s Resurgence in Latin America
20. Where is Margaritta-ville? The Geography of Jimmy Buffett songs

Thanks to Jim for his analysis and for letting me use his findings for this post. If you would like to perform your own analysis on the location of Margarittaville, click this link to open to Google Earth file. If you do not have GoogleEarth, download it here.

One of the things I really enjoyed about teaching was students with good ideas and the passion to pursue them. Along came Jim, a former student and current friend, who came up with the best Geography projects I saw during my short tenure. I think what made this project special was innovative use of technology, in this case GoogleEarth, coupled with his personal passion.

ACADEMIC ADVICE: Research papers don’t have to boring. Pick a topic thats interesting and execute your research with passion and innovation. Consider Jim as your case study. Jim is a self-described ParrotHead; a Jimmy Buffet fan. As a fan of Buffet’s entire catalog, he began to note the geographical nature of the lyrics and titles of the songs. So, for his project, he gathered latitudes and longitudes for each mention of a place in a Jimmy Buffet song. In doing so, though he was not able to pinpoint the exact location of MargarittaVille, he was able to identify the general area. Even though this was something of personal interest to him, he pursued the topic like an academic. Below are some results:

Update: Frank at the Google Earth Blog sent a few comments.

It’s certainly a cool concept. I am a bit of a Buffet fan myself. Although the list of placemarks is lengthy - I think he should open up the collection for input from other Parrotheads. For example, “Volcano” is all about Montserrat - and he didn’t placemark it. And, “Three Mile Island” is specifically mentioned in that song - and it isn’t marked. It would be neat to post the collection at the Google Earth Community and see if folks would add to it. Another thing that could be done is to add audio clips, or even video clips to placemark descriptions.