Geography Awareness Week Nov. 16-20

Geography touches many aspects of life, from transportation and emergency management to climate and economic development. As geographers are drawing attention to these connections during Geography Awareness Week, University of South Carolina faculty are available for interviews on these topics:

This fall, K-12 students throughout South Carolina are studying geography with a new curriculum as part of the state's revised education standards. The new curriculum takes students beyond memorizing state capitals and, instead, studies natural resources, political relationships and other ways geography impacts their lives.

 

Jerry Mitchell, a geography professor and chair of the S.C. Geography Alliance, helped develop the curriculum and has assisted many teachers with incorporating the new geography content into their classrooms. He is available for interviews about how teachers are educating students about geography through interactive projects and how this new curriculum can impact the state. To schedule an interview, contact Bryan Gentry, brgentry@sc.edu.

Geography students in the College of Arts and Sciences are working with Keven Bennett, a professor in the School of Medicine-Columbia, to create a rural health dashboard for South Carolina. The dashboard will make it easy for community leaders and residents to learn about health care issues impacting their communities.

The dashboard reveals the prevalence of various health conditions (such as diabetes and heart disease) in rural communities, as well as the medical care available in those communities. The dashboard is intended to help leaders identify needs and make decisions to improve health in rural communities. To schedule an interview, contact Bryan Gentry, brgentry@sc.edu.

This week, the Federal Emergency Management Agency released the first phase of its National Risk Index, an interactive map and dataset that illustrates the risk communities face from natural disasters. Based on geographic information systems technology, the map shows how social vulnerability, community resilience and risk of natural disaster damage combine to impact a community's level of risk.

 

Geography faculty in the UofSC Hazards and Vulnerability Research Institute provided input on the development of FEMA's tool as well as data that helps inform the map's risk ratings. Susan Cutter, director of the institute, is available for interviews about how communities can use this data to understand risk and prepare for disasters. To schedule an interview, contact Bryan Gentry, brgentry@sc.edu.