Assignment #22 - Faces of the World

Above - "average" faces of women around the world

Hello R8A bloggers,

It's time for your first official Geography blog assignment to begin!

You have already watched the two amazing National Geographic videos about "The Seven Billion". Now, I want you to start working with these ideas.

In the video about the Most Typical Human, National Geographic created the face of the current most typical human, but also mentioned that that face will be changing in your lifetime.

For this assignment, I want you to do some research and analysis about this idea of the changing human face. You are going to make one post to answer the questions below. There will be 5 parts to your post (A, B, C, D and E).

1. Post: Part A: First of all, I want you to look up the word "globalization". Once you've found a good definition, create a new post, link back to the definition(s) you found and then write a definition of globalization IN YOUR OWN WORDS, one that can be understood by your peers.

2. Next, check out "The Face of Tomorrow", an amazing art and geography project that addresses identity and globalization. In big cities around the world, migrants from many different countries gather and the average faces of those cities and countries tell a story. Visit the map page on this site and look at the average faces in different cities. You can click on different locations to see the average male and female faces, or go to the drop down menus at the bottom and compare average faces in up to four locations. Spend some time here playing around.

3. Post: Part B: Add to your post a description of how one would go about making these average faces (link back to any sources you used for information). In real life, how do facial identities change over generations?

4. Post: Part C: What did you notice while playing around with "The Face of Tomorrow"? Add to your post three points (written in full sentences) that you found interesting. (What does "the face of tomorrow" mean? Why do the differences in our faces give us a sense of identity? What surprised you? What did you expect?...)

5. Visit Face Research and play around with the dozens of faces there. You can select as many as you wish, and create an average of their faces. Play around until you create what you believe to be the "face of tomorrow". Once you've found it, save the image (right click and select "Save as", give it an appropriate title and save to your account).

6. Post: Part D: Add to your post the picture you created and write three reasons (in full sentences) why you think this average face best represents "the face of tomorrow". Make sure one of your sentences uses your new knowledge about the term "globalization". I want to see that new vocabulary word in this portion of your post.

Above - a face that I created on Face Research by combining three different women of different ethnic origins.

7. Post: Part E: Think about your own face and the faces of your family members and friends. Do you have a face that represents your nationality, your family and yourself? Write at least two reflective sentences thinking about your own identity that is shown to the world by your face.

8. Final step: leave a comment on this blog post to tell me when you're finished.

BONUS: On the Face Research website, you can even start a free account and upload photos of your face and average it with other faces. I haven't tried this yet, but if you do, please let me know!