A recent blog post on students’ maths skills rightly highlighted the challenges that face many students as they transition from school into a broad range of degrees. Equipping students with the skills and confidence to apply mathematical knowledge in their university studies, and also in their subsequent careers, is important and the new post-16 core […] … learn more→
Tag Archives: geography

Know your geography: quantitative skills aren’t just about maths
Lessons in transcending geography
The day students from my Massachusetts college came to my Alabama hometown, we drove through the near-mile-wide gash left by The Tornado. Near the church of my youth, students gawked at plains of denuded trees, half-gone houses, and bare foundations. Then we emerged on the far side of the disaster zone and parked on the […] … learn more→
Assaulting tolerance on the edge of the Muslim world: The tragedy in Northern Mali
The nation of Mali, and much of Sahelian West Africa, has long standing moderate Muslim practices dating back to the 9th century. This broadminded intellectual, spiritual and cultural tradition is being undermined by a new wave of religious colonialism emanating from outside of the region, an especially violent and intolerant form of fundamentalist Islam. The […] … learn more→
A glimpse of Africa’s future? Botswana’s conundrum of spectacular growth with hunger
GABORONE, BOTSWANA. You wouldn’t know there’s a food crisis in Botswana, one of Africa’s wealthiest and most stable countries, because it’s a silent one. This is not the doom and gloom Africa that we often hear sensationalized in the media as a place of coups, famines and corruption. No, Botswana is a model African state […] … learn more→
Azawad: A potentially problematic African ethnic territory
On April 6, Tuareg rebels in the West African city of Timbuktu unilaterally declared their independence from Mali and announced the birth of a new nation called Azawad. The declaration was widely ignored or condemned by neighboring African states and the international community. However, considering the arbitrary nature of many national borders in Africa which […] … learn more→
US global shift and the imperative for Higher Education
As the American era of global dominance draws to a close, higher education becomes more important than ever. … learn more→
EU regulations foster land degradation in Botswana
New requirements on beef exports could have a negative ecological impact on the country. … learn more→
Master of Studies in Sustainability Leadership
The Master of Studies in Sustainability Leadership is an accredited University of Cambridge postgraduate degree. It is delivered on a part-time basis over 2 years; hence participants can continue in full-time employment and do not need to be UK-based. … learn more→
New York State may soon suffer outsize effects from climate
In the first statewide climate change outlook for New York, scientists say that the state may suffer disproportionate effects in coming decades compared with other regions, due to its geography and geology. The report paints a harsh picture, including possible extreme temperature and sea-level rises, downpours, droughts and floods. The changes are projected to affect […] … learn more→
Be wary of Malthus: Why famine and population growth in the Horn of Africa are unrelated
With nearly 12 million people at risk of starvation in a region whose population has doubled in the last 24 years, one might assume that these two factors are causally related in the Horn of Africa. Ever since the British philosopher Thomas Malthus wrote \”An Essay on the Principle of Population\” in 1798, we have […] … learn more→