Saturday, January 23, 2016

How close do you live to a Superfund site? [Interactive Map]

This National Geographic site allows you to view Superfund sites on a map.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/superfund/

You can type in your location and the map will zoom to the zip code and give you a sense of where the nearest Superfund sites are. You can also click on the sites for more information about them.

Image result for national geographic superfund map

This map is a good starting point for talking about the Sociology of the Environment.   You can ask students to talk about how these sites came to be and about whether the responsibility to clean them up falls on citizens, business, and/or governments.

Additionally, you can use this map to start testing ideas about Environmental Racism.  Does it seem like the nicer areas have less of these sites? If so, why might that be?