World Regional Geography - Lucas Omann Risnæs
Learning Diary
Period 1
Week 1
In this first week, I discovered that I actually didn't really know that much, about the progress towards better welfare around the world. The video about the dollar street project, really showed me how we humans might not be as different from each other as we think. I was really impressed by the similarities between the way people lived all across the world, when compared to people with the same income level. Of course there will still be cultural differences, but the utmost basic thing in a human life, is the way we live at home, and this project shows that in this aspect, the differences are very small across the globe, but quite big, across different income levels. The thing about this, that makes it most interesting to me, is that it makes so much sense, yet still I never thought about it that way.
The Michael Green talk also made an impact on me, especially the moment where he pointed out that we already have the solution to clean drinking water, and that the solution just has to be upscaled. This of course, gives rise to a huge potential, but at the same time, I couldn't help but get a little bit confused as to why we don't do more of an effort to give more people acces to clean drinking water, as it might be the most important thing for human life.
Week 2
In this second week, I worked with the production of a mindmap. I've never tried making a mindmap, but even though the outcome of the mindmap might not have been the best, I enjoyed learning how to make one, and also the discovered that in making the mindmap, I started thinking in a different way. It felt like the ideas and thoughts started coming more naturally, when moving out different branches of the map, although it was sometimes hard to decide whether or not these ideas had to be put on the map or not.
When doing the peer-feedback, I looked at some of the other student's mindmaps, and I realized that I probably should have put more of my ideas into the map, instead of deciding which of the ideas to put there, as it seemed as my though my own mindmap was a bit thinner and unfilled than many of the others. I definitely wanna use this mindmap method in the developing state of future projects, as the thought-flow seems to be beneficial in getting ideas and seeing the connections between different aspects of a given topic.
Period 2
Week 1
In this week I started out by watching an animated video about the evolution of human population through time. It was very clear, that the population stayed about the same for huge periods of time. I thought it was very good for the understanding, that important historical events were shown simultaneously with the population progress. I was surprised by how long the Silk Road was actually important, and also surprised by how "little" the population actually decreased during the years with diseases. afterwards I watched more videos or talks performed by Hans Rosling, who is very good at keeping the listeners interested, and the way he used both the toilet paper rolls in one talk, and the Ikea boxes in another, was something that really got me thinking his reasoning for doing this. I concluded that it was a very good way of keeping people wondering what he is going to show with something so basic, and that way he keeps his listeners focused, instead of losing them by just showing one boring graph after another. Finally Charles C Manns talk, started out by arguing that we humans are an outbreak species, and that it never ends up good for outbreak species, as there will at some point be boundaries which will lead to insufficient supply of basic needs for life. It was great to listen to his talk, as it had another perspective to the topic, than the perspective of Hans Rosling.
Overall it has being a good first week of this period, and I think that the conversation assignment after watching the videos both helps you keep attention and listen carefully to the videos, as you want to have something to say about it in the conversation, but also helps you understand the videos in different ways, when reading other student's comments. I have never tried this way of learning in my time as a student in Denmark, and I was a bit skeptical in the beginning, but I would definitely recommend it to others.
Week 2
In week 2, I wrote an essay about the connections between child mortality and population growth in the world. I actually chose this topic, because of the speech by Hans Rosling, where he shows how there seems to be a correlation between less babies pr woman, and low child mortality rates. I thought this was a very interesting connection, especially as I didn't think that the child mortality rates in an area, would influence the number of babies a woman in set area would give birth to. I tried to read a bit about how the progress was towards reducing child mortality rates in Africa, while also concluding that there can be huge regional differences in child mortality rates. Finally it was time to give feedback to another student's essay, and he are I chose an essay with a different topic than my own, so that I could also learn some more about this topic.
Period 3
Week 1
This period I started out by watching the three linked videos. From here I found all of the videos interesting, but especially the Ted talk by David Sedlak inspired me to think more about the topic of drought. In his talk, he presents multiple ways to supply water for the growing urban areas, of which some experience longer periods of drought either now, or in the future due to climate change. I found this topic very interesting, and began considering how I could set up my bachelor project around this topic next year. For me personally, it was very interesting to hear how about the rainwater harvesting, and how so much rainwater goes to waste, due to the human made surfaces in the urban areas, which water doesn't penetrate through. It think the solutions sounded very durable, but I might have gotten a little bit carried away, cause when I read the other students conversation posts, they were way more critical and questionable about these ideas. For me it was a good thing to read these more critical opinions, as I then get ideas about areas to focus on on this topic, if I am going to do to my own research about next year.
Week 2
In week 2, I spent the first part of the week on reading articles about desertification and drought, which I would then use to produce a poster about that topic. I had never produced a poster before, and generally all these visual projects that I have had to make on my exchange here in Oulu, has never been my strong side. With that being said, I think it is a good thing to practice and learn, although I would've wished to have more time to focus on one specific type of visual project, just to really improve at it, but that is probable just because I never tried any of it back home in Denmark.
My poster ended up like this, with me trying to use some bright colors, to get peoples attention. I also tried to use a lot of relevant pictures and graphs, to make it a lighter read. I was actually pretty happy about my poster, but when I later reviewed others posters, I realized that I lot of additional graphic elements can be used, to make the poster less "flat". Besides from that, I would definitely also try to sum up my text boxes in fewer words, as it seemed to work pretty well in some of the others posters.
Period 4
Week 1
This weeks topic was globalization. Prior to the course I had some knowledge of globalization already, but a lot of the presented parts of globalization in this weeks material, was new to me. The way that Richard Baldwin presents globalization as driven by arbitrage trading carried out by companies, seems a very fitting image, while his presentation of tele-migration as a potential driver of globalization in the future, seems even more interesting. This will be a shift in the global economy, from trading with goods, to trading with services, and this particular shift, has been seen on numerous occasions through development of national economies. Huge websites already make it possible to sell your services, while translator machines seem to tear down any language barriers. On a sidenote to these translator machines, many have been afraid that threatened languages would die out due to globalization, but these translator machines, may well protect them, as learning other languages seems less important now.
So far, this period has been very interesting, and as a last note from the material in this first week, I would like to point out how Hugh Evans proves that actions inspire actions. Overall I think his talk was very touching, but all his evidence of action inspiring other actions really stood out to me, as it is a very commonly and maybe even overly used phrase. Still it was very nice to see some evidence for it, and it turns out that even small actions can have pretty big multiplier effects on other people and their ability and will to act.
Week 2
Week 2 was mostly about choosing a topic, and then making a presentation about it. I chose to make a presentation about the links between globalization and economy, as I found this linkage, the most interesting to me. In the work with my presentation, I found myself using a lot of time researching about the topic, and finding a lot of stuff, with less relevance to my presentation.
Finally I found myself a lot more comfortable with the powerpoint program, after spending a lot of time learning the program when working on the presentation in the previous period. I ended up with a much better outcome this time around in my opinion, and this is definitely also something to take away from these tasks.
Period 5 --> Conclusion
Overall this has been a very different course, than what I expected when arriving here. I didn't know that it would all be online, and I was a bit afraid in the beginning of the course, that the online format, would have a negative effect on my learning. I have been positively surprised by it, and especially the conversations in the beginning of each period, was a brilliant way to get others opinions and thoughts as well, and in that way make up for the lack of face to face learning, where you quite naturally get to hear other student's ideas and thoughts, which I find very valuable in my learning.
The topics of the course has also been very interesting. I wouldn't say that I have gotten a more positive view on the disparities and current state of the world, but I have definitely been enlightened on the progress that are actually being made, towards securing equality and better living standards. The material regarding the security of clean and safe drinking water in some areas, has especially been interesting to me, and has even inspired me to do further research on the topic, and maybe even write my bachelor thesis around the topic when I get home to Denmark.
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