Peter W. Rees

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AND DOWNTOWN RESTRUCTURING: THE CASE OF NEW YORK CITY'S FINANCIAL DISTRICT

Among central-city land-use districts, the financial district traditionally has been the most locationally stable. Advances in building and business technology, such as steel frame contruction, the passenger elevator, and the telephone, have been accommodated through refitting existing sites. The changes in building technology required by modern, global financial companies, particularly the large horizontal footplates that exceed the size of traditional sites, have finally loosened the concentrated business district location. In downtown Manhattan, the result has been a doughnut shape, as large financial institutions have moved to the periphery, leaving Wall Street with back-office functions. The obsolescence of traditional locations imposed by a building technology that favors horizontal over vertical spaces may be offset by the perceived need for face-to-face contact. The degree to which financial institutions in world cities maintain a dispersed but identifiable district in the future may be an accurat...

Returning “region” to world regional geography

World regional geography textbooks rarely focus on the process of region formation, despite frequent calls to reincorporate a regional approach to teaching global geography. An instructional strategy using problem-based learning in a small honors section of a large world regional geography course is described. Using a hypothetical scenario reorganizing the US State Departments metaregional structure, students conducted group research and presentations on the geopolitical consequences of allocating states to a metaregion. Results indicated that honors students acquired as much content knowledge as those in the regular lecture section and significantly greater awareness about the implications of metaregional membership.

Advancing Geographic Education in Delaware: A Case of Politics and Advocacy

Delaware is a small but diverse state in which face-to-face and one-on-one communication with members of the public as well as educational leaders is a pre-requisite to achieving success with educational programmes such as the Delaware Geographic Alliance. The Alliance has been closely involved with state educational reform efforts by helping to staff committees that crafted the state geography standards and now is developing items for the state test. Recently, the Alliance has targeted high schools, where the greatest resistance to geographic teaching and learning is encountered. A project is underway to develop a series of teaching units that focus on the geography of health and disease. Throughout its work over the past ten years, the Alliance has found that educational reform is highly political and geography requires constant advocacy to compete for attention in a crowded school curriculum.

The Delaware Geography-Health Initiative: Lessons Learned in Designing a GIS-Based Curriculum

Abstract The Delaware Geography-Health Initiative is a Web- and GIS-based set of lesson units for teaching geographic concepts and research methods within the context of the states high school geography standards. Each unit follows a research-based, inquiry-centered model addressing questions of health because of Delawares high incidence of cancer, HIV/AIDS, and infant mortality. Topics focus on cancer and the environment, the geography of HIV/AIDS, the diffusion of West Nile fever, provision of emergency ambulance services, the location of the states next hospital, infant mortality and the location of prenatal care, and identification of healthy places. Results from piloting and early formative assessments were used to modify the final product. Lessons learned in developing this project may assist those seeking to create GIS-based state-specific teaching units for geography and other related subjects.