The Learning Umbrella

In the latest issue of Utne magazine, there is a little article about artist Ingo Gunther's globes, which show various statistics physically represented on the world. I wish I could see these in 3D and actually spin them around, but the 2D photographs are cool too. And it gives me an interesting idea for homeschool projects - creating globes or maps like this would reinforce a lot of geography and whatever concept was being studied at the time. Just browsing through the website for these globes is an educational experience, because so many of them literally turn the world as we know it sideways or upside down. I was very struck by one that showed Japan as large as it would be for relative economic size to the rest of the world. That one was a few years old, back when Japan still was the monster economy. Another showed all the nations with the death penalty or governmental assasinations reported, while another showed refuge routes around the globe. These are thought provoking globes.