Geographic touchpoints
The concept of geographic touchpoints, a term popularized by Gregory Kohs, is the association of points on the Earth's surface with significant events in history. In this Wikiversity learning resource, we wish to build a database that associates four significant events in a person's history (birth, education, work, and death) with the corresponding touchpoints on the globe.
How to participate
[edit | edit source]Everyone is welcome to join in building this learning resource in one or more of the following ways:
Database development
[edit | edit source]- Add your personal geographic touchpoints to the database below
- Add the verifiable geographic touchpoints of other individuals (try to diversify the sample)
- Proof, corroborate, and update existing touchpoints in the database
Analyze the database
[edit | edit source]Using any method or software of your choosing, try to determine how these geographic touchpoints might tell a larger story.
- Do individuals with a lower income have a smaller geographic footprint over their lifespan?
- Do males or females travel farther from their birthplace to receive their highest education?
- Are people born more recently more mobile over their lifespan? If so, how much more in terms of miles expanded per decade of cohort births?
- Etc., etc., etc. Let your imagination wander!
Details
[edit | edit source]The Geographic touchpoints initiative will be a collection of coordinate mapping data for four key events in a person's lifetime:
- Birth - Place of birth
- School - Where engaged in most advanced phase of formal education (to date)
- Work - Where performed highest-paid phase of employment (to date)
- Death - Where subject reasonably wishes for remains to be interred or scattered, or (in case of death) actual interment place
You may wish to use iTouchMap to assist in finding latitude and longitude coordinates.
Additional data points are requested from contributors, so that a more robust analysis may be accomplished. These are:
- Year of birth - YYYY
- Gender - M or F
- Highest level of education (to date) - NHS (did not complete high school); HS (high school diploma); SC (some college); C (college degree); GS (graduate study); G (graduate degree).
- Household income (current quintile for the country where work touchpoint was performed) - 1 (lowest class); 2 (lower middle); 3 (middle); 4 (upper middle); 5 (highest class).
You may enter data about yourself, or about well-documented individuals of wider notability. It is believed that substantial insights may be gained from the detailed analysis of this data, once the sample set contains at least 1,000 members.
Assistance
[edit | edit source]If you are too confused (or lazy!) to enter your data into the table, feel free to just leave your information in text form on the discussion page, and someone will be along shortly to look up and plug in your coordinate data.
Database
[edit | edit source]| Name (optional) | BIRTH | SCHOOL | WORK | DEATH | Birth Year | Gender | Education | Income |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gregory Kohs | 42.250706, -84.39252 | 39.981420, -75.152621 | 39.954398, -75.16858 | 36.045948, -81.895754 | 1968 | M | G | 5 |
| J.L. | 35.600945, -82.554015 | 35.904312, -79.05001 | 51.500152, -0.126236 | 1980 | M | G | 4 | |
| J.A. | 38.268215, 140.869356 | 42.728345, -84.474075 | 29.310000, -94.781284 | 1949 | M | G | ||
| Erkan Yilmaz | 48.89, 8.7138 | 49.011115, 8.414312 | 49.008052, 8.399938 | 1976 | M | G | ||
| Albert Einstein | 48.399623, 9.996607 | 47.374722, 8.548333 | 40.331667, -74.667778 | 40.3310617, -74.667993 | 1879 | M | G | 5 |
| Marilyn Monroe | 34.05939, -118.20847 | 34.045073, -118.459345 | 34.05556, -118.41694 | 34.058347, -118.441135 | 1926 | F | HS | 5 |
| Mariano Melgar | -16.398822, -71.536886 | -12.043333, -77.028333 | -16.398822, -71.536886 | -15.843333, -70.023611 | 1791 | M | G |
Musical inspiration
[edit | edit source]If you wish, enjoy the music video Birth, School, Work, Death by The Godfathers.