Archive for Anna Versluis

In the area of Haiti I study, food crops like cabbage frequently rot in the field due to the monopsony of a single market in Port-au-Prince and difficulty of transporting crops to market. (Photo by Anna Versluis.) 

Wasted Opportunity: Inefficiency and Waste in our Food Systems

Jonathan Foley, Director of the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment, has a recent essay on meeting food needs in a world of growing human population. It is titled “Wasted Opportunity.” Here’s an excerpt (bold font added): “It never fails. Whenever we talk about meeting the world’s growing demands for food, energy and water, [...]

Landsat images of Istanbul, Turkey, from 1975 (top) and 2011 (bottom). Curtosy of NASA. 

Timelapse: Land transformation videos

  These land change time-lapse series from Time Magazine and GoogleEarth are making the internet rounds. It’s fun to see land use and land cover change be so popular! Remote sensors: can you find the Landsat ETM+ SLC-off years?

Hate speech map based on Twitter feeds

Geography students at Humboldt State University in California created this map of hate speech in the U.S. based on Twitter feeds: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/13/twitter-hate-speech_n_3265916.html.

A garment factory in Bangladesh. (Photo by Fahad Faisal. Creative Commons License.) 

Fair Trade: On Our Interconnected World

Our world today is more interconnected than ever. One major expression of our interconnectedness is the global economy: the goods and services we purchase are often produced in far-off places, and the inevitable waste that is a byproduct of our current economy also has global impacts (see here for one example). The deaths of over [...]

The U.S. Drought Monitor map for May 7, 2013, shows Minnesota's drought to be lessening due to a wet spring. (Source: http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/) 

A record wet start to Minnesota’s spring

from WeatherTalk, by Mark Seeley, Univ. of Minnesota, Dept of Soil, Water, and Climate: “The south-central and southeastern climate divisions of Minnesota are off to a record start in 2013 in terms of precipitation. For south-central Minnesota observers the average total precipitation received through the first 4 months of the year (Jan-Apr) is 11.17 inches, [...]

Matt Bye's senior thesis looked at three Twin Cities churches and where they draw their congregants from. 

Geography Majors Present Research

Fourteen geography majors participated in this year’s Celebration of Creative Inquiry at Gustavus. Here is a sample of some of their studies.    

Emery Ellingson ('12) presents his honors thesis on Minnesota's ethanol production and its impact on conservation reserve lands. 

Geography students to present research

Thirteen Geography majors at will take part in this year’s Celebration of Creative Inquiry. Come check out their research and show your support! What: Celebration of Creative Inquiry When: 5-7pm on Friday, May 3 Where: Gustavus Campus Center Research posters by: Brian Zabel: Spatial Analysis of Viable Locations for Future Construction of Cabela’s Retail Stores [...]

aag 

AAG: Should our name be changed?

Should the Association of American Geographers (AAG), the primary society for academic geography, change its name to reflect that it has grown to be an international organization? AAG President Eric Sheppard argues yes here.

Matt Bye presents on "Parishes without Borders." 

Undergraduate Geography Conference Held at Macalester

The annual Midwest Undergraduate Geography Symposium (MUGS) was held at Macalester College on Saturday, April 28, 2013. Gustavus Geography Professors Drs. Bjelland, Versluis, and Bergstrom attended along with eleven Geography majors. Senior Matt Bye gave an excellent presentation on the spatial distribution of Twin Cities evangelical church members, a study he has conducted with Dr. [...]

aamap 

Interactive Map of Mobile Calls and Texts

How are people connected to other locations via phone calls and texts? Here’s a great map showing where mobile calls and texts originate and are sent in the United States: http://senseable.mit.edu/csa/interact.html. Where do most of your calls and texts go to?