Recursos-Teaching about Mexico and Canada
Udated on November 1,2006

Book titles from Select Latin America Smithsonian Folkways Borderlands: From Conjunto to Chicken Scratch . This CD includes detailed liner notes -- see about 100 more titles in the Folkways Latin section, or visit my Musica page. Poor Mexico! So far from God, so close to the United States

• BBCs Mexico country profile is current, well-researched, and more balanced than the CIA Factbook.
• The Mexico Maps page at the Perry-Castañeda map collection is an authoritative online collection.
  
• The Mexico page at Resource Center of the Americas includes news items, original research, and links regarding human rights and politics.
• The Mexico map and information pages at Graphic Maps has maps, test maps, and flags -- great for teaching.
• See my Latin America Geography Links page for important resources, random connections, and unsolicited opinions.
• The Mexico page of my County Map Project site shows where I have been and where I still need to go.
• The Mexico Country Study from Library of Congress is authoritative, though a bit dated.
• The Mexico states map is a good way to test place-name recognition interactively; this page also includes links to real-time weather
• The Maping Lab Series is a great resource to look at maps and greography.
  

Activities and Resources for the Geography of the World ( ARG World ) is a set of resources that illustrate geographic concepts with rich examples suitable for a broad range of ages.

Useful Books:

• West, John O. 1989. Mexican-American Folklore: Legends, Songs, Festivals, Proverbs, Crafts, Talesof Saints, of Revolutionaries, and More. Little Rock: August House.
• Sobel, David. 1998. Mapmaking with Children: Sense of Place Education for the Elementary Years. Portsmounth, NH: Heinemann.
• Allen, John L.; Leppman, Elizabeth J.  2004. Student Atlas of World Politics.  Sixth Edition. Guilford, CT: McGraw-Hill/Dushkin.
• Gover, Brett R.; McNamara, Margaret; Natunewicz, Ann T. 2003. Atlas of World Geography. Randy McNally & Company.

Resourses on Canada:

• The Atlas of Canada Web site will provide an interesting, dynamic and comprehensive collection of maps and related information about Canada with effective and intuitive tools for users to access them.
• This web site talks about the Unique and Vital Relationship that Canada and The United States possess.
  

Find the Tropic of Cancer on a map of Mexico, then consider where Mexico is situated with respect to global wind and pressure patterns. (See more animations.) The influence of these patterns on local climate is strongly modified by local topography, as illustrated below.

Instituto Nacional de Estadística Geografía e Informática (National Institute of Geographic Statistics and Information) INEGI is the Mexican equivalent of a combined US Geological Survey and Bureau of the Census

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First, examine the municipio names in Puebla. This is an example of important toponyms.

The INEGI site is divided into two main parts:

• Información estadística
• Información geográfica

Within both parts, state-level information can found in a menu at the top-left entitled "información por entidad federativa."

On the geographic page, use this to learn about Chiapas (which comes after Colima, because "ch" is a separate letter in the Spanish alphabet). Choose "climas" and then "ver mapa de climas," and then compare it to the elevation and physiographic maps. We can also look at the distribution of rainfall through the year.

Within the statistical section, we will do some comparisons of  growth rates, density, and prevalence of Catholicism.


 Many other kinds of connections could be considered, as in:

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James Hayes-Bohanan , Ph.D.
Bridgewater State College
USA/EEUU