The Anchorage Daily News reports on why there are so many answers - so related to the changing route, others to technology, others to history... Interesting stuff.

No matter the "best" answer for this year's course - to be determined this year with GPS devices aboard a number of sleds - I'll be remembering "1049." Why? That's what Hobo Jim quotes in the song: Iditarod Trail.

Hey, Give me team and a good lead dog and a sled that’s built so fine
Let me race those miles to Nome, one-thousand-forty-nine
Then when I get back to my home, hey I can tell my tale
I did, I did, I did The Iditarod Trail

It's been two years since Google Earth blasted onto the scene helping neophyte and experienced geographers gain better appreciation for geography and their world. But where are we now? What's the future of globes? What are the next steps? Who will take them? Our editors have some ideas.

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The technology, a result of a partnership between Case Western Reserve and Bowling Green, uses a mobile device to explore photograph-based virtual worlds. There's no GPS, nor Wi-Fi used, as I understand it, for the navigation of the worlds. It's not clear how the datasets are knit together. Even if I don't quite follow how it works, the New Media Consortium identified it as one of six emerging technologies in its 2008 Horizon Report. The end use?

This three-dimensional photographic virtual world is likely to be introduced to higher education and specific organizations within the next five years.

- Pocket Virtual Worlds website (flash demo available)

- The BG News

Researchers published two studies this week that included important maps. One highlighted the human impact on the world's oceans. A second documented the past, current and future vulnerability of the U.S. population to natural disasters. Press coverage of the first study was considerable, with the map distributed far and wide on the Web and beyond. Coverage of the second was limited to the scientific and geographic press. Why the disparity? Our editors review the maps and offer their thoughts.

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The Corpus Christi Geological Society program started it. The Society worked with local residents and businesses to fund framed US geologic maps for elementary schools. Now the West Texas Geological Society is doing the same thing aimed to put maps in each elementary school in Midland and Odessa; the underlying goal is to spark student interest in science and geology in particular.

A donation of $150 puts a map, with a plaque about the donor into a school. Another way to donate is to learn about the map and make presentations about it; the society provides training.

- MyWestTexas.com

This week our editors use study from the UK which notes "pupils' dissatisfaction with a geography curriculum which they perceive as irrelevant" as a starting point to explore academic geography and geospatial education trends. What works at different grade levels? Does keying in on career options make sense? Should there be a grade school subject of geography? The demands from students, employers and educators leave us optimistic.

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