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Humanities: Geography Unit 2: Geography of Human Wellbeing

Teachers Resources

Examples of Measuring Happiness Around the World

Human Wellbeing

Human Development Index

The Human Development Index incorporates data from indicators such as life expectancy, educational attainment and income. The index is a figure between 1 and 0 and allows us to compare the social and economic development of countries over time and compare countries. Video explanation here.

Country Profiles

Explore the Data

Build Your Own Chart

Reports and eBook here.

Why is this data important? This data allows policy makers to focus on human development not just on economic growth. Two countries may have similar GDP but different life expectancies. With this data we can begin to ask why this is so. 

Mapping Hunger

GallUp Well Being

Select one of the above websites and spend 10 minutes exploring all the features.

Report back to the class on:

  • What information or data is contained?
  • What is the breadth and scope of the data?
  • Where is the data being collected from? Is this a reliable place?
  • What data is relevant to us?
  • How user-firendly is the map?
  • What interested you? Did you make any discoveries? 
  • What could be represented better?

Refugees

Every registered refugee since 1960: Interactive Map

"UNHCR has been attempting to count the world's refugees since it was created. If you want to find out which years resulted in the worst displacement, which were the biggest countries of origin and which were the biggest countries of asylum, use the interactive map below. Click on a year or country to see the detail." from The Guardian. 

Definitions

World Happiness Map 
Blue = Most Happy
Red - Least Happy

Quality of Life Thesaurus

  • Human wellbeing
  • Livable cities
  • Livable places
  • Liveability
  • Social wellbeing
  • Wellbeing

Break Down

  • Social Mobility
  • Living Standards
  • Life Chance
  • Life Expectancy
  • Modernisation
  • Socio-Economic Status

Geographical Inquiries