Archive for September, 2013

China signs deal to farm 5% of Ukraine

Earlier this year, China signed a deal that will allow China to lease and farm 3 million hectares of agricultural land in Ukraine, or five percent of Ukraine. With fertile plains and a climate similar to the wheat-growing regions of Manitoba, Ukraine is one of the world’s top grain-producing countries. According to Mandy Zuo of […]

Not your typical soil probe

What happens when you ask a local farmer if you can take a soil sample from his field? He says he has something better than a soil probe: he has an excavator and he’ll dig you a 6-foot trench. So students in GEG-105 Physical Geography: Earth System Science this week were treated to a view […]

Geography student completes GIS internship for engineering firm

Geography and Environmental Studies major Meg Wika (’14) spent this past summer working for Barr Engineering in Minneapolis as a GIS intern. Her internship is currently being featured on the Gustavus homepage here.

“Overpopulation is not the problem”

This recent op-ed piece in the New York Times by geographer and environmental scientist Erle Ellis sums up perfectly last week’s lesson in GEG/ENV-250 Nature & Society. Here’s an excerpt: “Unable to explain how [human] populations grew for millenniums while increasing the productivity of the same land, I discovered the agricultural economist Ester Boserup, the […]

Welcome Geographers

Welcome geographers and friends of geography to the 2013 academic year at Gustavus Adolphus College. The Department of Geography is proud to welcome back Anna Versluis as Department Co-Chair, Visiting Instructor Lencho Bati, Visiting Assistant Professor Ryan Bergstrom, Professors Emeriti Bob Douglas and Bob Moline, and Administrative Assistant Judy Helmeke.  We are especially excited to […]