The purpose of this assignment is to choose a topic or issue that

The purpose of this assignment is to choose a topic or issue that

The purpose of this assignment is to choose a topic or issue that demonstrates how places influence one another. Places are interdependent, and events that occur in one place can cause a chain reaction of events in other places. I have attached a sample paper and the news have to be a based on a current topic.

Each news summary will consist of a paragraph on a news story about a current event topic or controversial issue:

1. A summary of one important topic/issue from the State of Minnesota (or upper Mid- west [northern WI or IA, or the Dakotas]).

2. A summary of one important topic/issue from the United States.

3. A summary of one important topic/issue from countries/regions outside the United States.

Summaries should include the essence of the story (including location), and could also include discussion of prominent people or organizations (on either side of the item if there is controversy), and expected outcomes.

4th –Final paragraph (label this paragraph Geographic Connections): All papers will include a final paragraph/discussion of how the topic/issue connects across multiple scales of geography (global, national, local). The connections should be as direct as possible from one news story to the next across local, national, and international scales. Most of the points for this assignment are awarded based on your ability to make direct Geographic connection in this final paragraph.

Here’s an example of how this is supposed to work:

Earthquake in Haiti (international story from BBC)> Barak Obama orders 10,000 Marines to Haiti to help with the relief effort (National story from the New Your Times)> a relief agency in Fridley here in the Twin Cities assembles boxes of meals to fly into Haiti to help feed the victims of the earthquake (a local story from the Star Tribune). These are real examples of news that appeared after the Haitian earthquake in 2010.

See how there is a direct connection from one place to the next – the event in Haiti set Obama, and also people in Fridley, in motion.