Over the weekend, my son and I played snapping-mapping games at www.coolmath-games.com.
It's a little bit addicting, but definitely not a time waster... Because you learn the names of nations. It always nags me to not be completely sure whether Angola borders South Africa (nope, Namibia in between), and where the Z nations (Zambia, Zimbabwe, SwaZiland, MoZambique) lay south of Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire). Highly recommended. They have Snap-maps for Asia, Europe, and state puzzles for Canada, Mexico, USA, Australia. I am finally coming to grips with the names of former Yugoslavia.
This belongs in the blog because Americans need to be better at geography if they are going to be good environmentalists.
The Basel Convention is so out of date it's not funny. I mean rule of law is great, but tying environmental law to "OECD" when Singapore has the second or third highest GDP per capita in the world, and R2 stakeholders refuse to allow hard drives to be recycled in Signapore (where Seagate, the hard disk manufacturer is based)... I mean, this is a joke. This is why we absolutely have to call on the universities, ASU, MIT, Memorial U, UVM, Dartmouth, Middlebury College, and others to rescue Fair Trade Recycling. Allowing people to depict Penang Malaysia as a primitive wire burning village is so ridiculous... Passing Shenzhen on the way to Guiyu, and not mentioning Foxconn, it's like confusing NASA with a Star Trek convention.
Anyway, play the game and try to beat your time. I started the weekend at 470 seconds for Africa, my last time was 134.1 seconds. It would be great if they developed games which allowed you to learn population (Africa has about 1 billion population, about 20% of the population lives in either Nigeria or Egypt), GDP, average age of country, women to men ratio, etc. There are about 100 cities in China with populations of over 1 million (compared to fewer than 2 dozen in the USA), but I doubt I can name more than 5% of them. There are so many better ways to select recycling partners than "OECD". I'd nominate the relative education level, voting rights, and emancipation of women over Basel Signatory status.
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| Updated score posted 5:06PM EST |
It's a little bit addicting, but definitely not a time waster... Because you learn the names of nations. It always nags me to not be completely sure whether Angola borders South Africa (nope, Namibia in between), and where the Z nations (Zambia, Zimbabwe, SwaZiland, MoZambique) lay south of Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire). Highly recommended. They have Snap-maps for Asia, Europe, and state puzzles for Canada, Mexico, USA, Australia. I am finally coming to grips with the names of former Yugoslavia.
This belongs in the blog because Americans need to be better at geography if they are going to be good environmentalists.
The Basel Convention is so out of date it's not funny. I mean rule of law is great, but tying environmental law to "OECD" when Singapore has the second or third highest GDP per capita in the world, and R2 stakeholders refuse to allow hard drives to be recycled in Signapore (where Seagate, the hard disk manufacturer is based)... I mean, this is a joke. This is why we absolutely have to call on the universities, ASU, MIT, Memorial U, UVM, Dartmouth, Middlebury College, and others to rescue Fair Trade Recycling. Allowing people to depict Penang Malaysia as a primitive wire burning village is so ridiculous... Passing Shenzhen on the way to Guiyu, and not mentioning Foxconn, it's like confusing NASA with a Star Trek convention.
Anyway, play the game and try to beat your time. I started the weekend at 470 seconds for Africa, my last time was 134.1 seconds. It would be great if they developed games which allowed you to learn population (Africa has about 1 billion population, about 20% of the population lives in either Nigeria or Egypt), GDP, average age of country, women to men ratio, etc. There are about 100 cities in China with populations of over 1 million (compared to fewer than 2 dozen in the USA), but I doubt I can name more than 5% of them. There are so many better ways to select recycling partners than "OECD". I'd nominate the relative education level, voting rights, and emancipation of women over Basel Signatory status.
| Country | Africa Rank | World Rank | Population |
 Nigeria | 1 | 12 | 125,750,356 |
| Egypt | 2 | 17 | 76,117,421 |
| Ethiopia | 3 | 18 | 71,336,571 |
| Congo, DR | 4 | 24 | 58,317,930 |
| South Africa | 5 | 28 | 44,448,470 |
| Sudan | 6 | 32 | 39,148,162 |
| Tanzania | 7 | 35 | 36,070,799 |
| Kenya | 8 | 36 | 32,982,109 |
| Morocco | 9 | 38 | 32,209,101 |
| Algeria | 10 | 39 | 32,129,324 |
| Uganda | 11 | 44 | 26,390,258 |
| Ghana | 12 | 52 | 20,757,032 |
| Mozambique | 13 | 56 | 19,111,633 |
| Madagascar | 14 | 58 | 17,501,871 |
| Cote D'Ivoire | 15 | 59 | 16,944,598 |
| Cameroon | 16 | 61 | 16,063,678 |
| Burkina Faso | 17 | 65 | 13,574,820 |
| Zimbabwe | 18 | 68 | 12,671,860 |
| Mali | 19 | 69 | 11,956,788 |
| Malawi | 20 | 70 | 11,906,855 |
| Niger | 21 | 71 | 11,360,538 |
| Zambia | 22 | 73 | 11,025,690 |
| Angola | 23 | 74 | 10,978,552 |
| Senegal | 24 | 75 | 10,852,147 |
| Tunisia | 25 | 83 | 9,974,722 |
| Guinea | 26 | 85 | 9,246,462 |
| Somalia | 27 | 89 | 8,304,601 |
| Rwanda | 28 | 90 | 8,238,673 |
| Benin | 29 | 96 | 7,250,033 |
| Burundi | 30 | 101 | 6,231,221 |
| Sierra Leone | 31 | 105 | 5,883,889 |
| Libya | 32 | 106 | 5,631,585 |
| Togo | 33 | 108 | 5,556,812 |
| Eritrea | 34 | 119 | 4,447,307 |
| Central African Rep. | 35 | 128 | 3,742,482 |
| Liberia | 36 | 132 | 3,390,635 |
| Mauritania | 37 | 134 | 2,998,563 |
| Congo, Rep | 38 | 135 | 2,998,040 |
| Namibia | 39 | 146 | 2,014,026 |
| Botswana | 40 | 149 | 1,639,231 |
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