The Facts are there!

Today's project:  Begin the cleanup of my vast collection of computer bookmarks on Diigo.  As a teacher, tech strategist and trainer I amassed a huge collection, dating back to 1998.  Many of those are probably dead-ends, right?  But some are treasures.  Since sifting through thousands of links may get tedious, I'm going to share some sites very pertinent for today before I get back in the slog.

The Facts Are There...Let's Find Them...Let's Use Them!

I'd like to introduce you to GapMinder.  

WHAT GAPMINDER IS

Gapminder is an independent Swedish foundation with no political, religious or economic affiliations. Gapminder is a fact tank, not a think tank. Gapminder fights devastating misconceptions about global development. Gapminder produces free teaching resources... Gapminder promotes a fact-based worldview everyone can understand...

WHY GAPMINDER EXISTS

We humans are born with a craving for fat and sugar. But we are also born with a craving for drama. We pay attention to dramatic stories and we get bored if nothing happens.

Journalists and lobbyists tell dramatic stories. That’s their job...The... dramatic stories pile up in people’s minds into an overdramatic worldview and strong negative stress feelings: “The world is getting worse!”, “It’s we vs. them!”...
For the first time in human history reliable statistics exist... The data shows a very different picture: a world where most things improve; a world that is not divided. People across cultures and religions make decisions based on universal human needs, which are easy to understand. The fast population growth will soon be over. The total number of children in the world has stopped growing. The remaining population growth is an inevitable consequence of large generations born decades back. We live in a globalized world, not only in terms of trade and migration. More people than ever care about global development! The world has never been less bad. Which doesn’t mean it’s perfect. The world is far from perfect.

The dramatic worldview has to be dismantled, because it is stressful and wrong... We know this because we have measured the global ignorance among the world’s top decision makers in public and private sector. Their global ignorance is high, just like the ignorance of journalists, activists, teachers and the general public. This has nothing to do with intelligence. It’s a problem of factual knowledge. Facts don’t come naturally. Drama and opinions do. Factual knowledge has to be learned. We need to teach global facts in schools and in corporate training...The problem can be solved, because the data exists.

WHAT GAPMINDER DOES

Instead of wasting our time blaming the media or condemning the human brain, we develop free teaching material to dismantle misconceptions and promote a fact-based worldview.
Gapminder measures ignorance about the world

We identify the most ignored global facts by comparing what people think against the official statistics. We run public polls and we ask knowledge questions to live audiences from stage.
Gapminder makes global data easy to use and understand

We develop data visualization tools to let people explore the vast treasure of global statistics. Since many people hate statistics, we use photos as data to give the numbers meaning...

We also develop teaching materials and knowledge certificates. With our teacher certificate we want to create a global network of trusted Gapminder teachers who can represent us locally.
Gapminder promotes Factfulness, a new way of thinking... It is the relaxing habit of carrying opinions that are based on solid facts.

Here is an introduction to the founder of Gapminder giving his Ted Talk.

The best statistics you've ever seen