Regional Geography of North America

1. Regional Geography of North America Social Studies 9

2. Definition of Geography • Geography comes from the Greek words Geo (γη) or Gaea (γαια), both meaning "Earth", and graphein (γραφειν) meaning "to describe" or "to write“ or "to map" • Science that deals with the earth’s surface and its division into continents and countries, and the climate … [kind of weather patterns that a place has over a period of years] , animal and plant life, peoples, resources, industries, and products of these divisionsfrom Canadian Intermediate Dictionary

4. Branches of Geography Science of geography can be divided into two main parts: • Human • Physical

5. Human Geography • Is the study of how humans interact with different environments • It focuses on the causes (reasons for) and consequences (impacts) of where human activity is distributed across the earth’s surface • Subfields include: cultural, economic, social, urban, and political

8. Physical Geography • Is the study of the natural processes that shape the surface of the Earth and life on it

9. Subfields of Physical Geography • Geomorphology (surface of earth and processes which shape it now and in the past) • Hydrology (amount and quality of water moving and accumulating on the land surface and in the soil and rocks near the surface) • Glaciology (glaciers and ice sheets) • Biogeography (how different species are distributed across the earth and reasons for these patterns)

10. Subfields continued • Climatology (climate or weather conditions averaged over a long period of time) • Pedology (study of soils) • Oceanography (study of earth’s oceans and seas) • Environmental Geography (study of human interactions with the natural world)

12. Our focus … • In this part of the course, we will be focusing on the physical branch of geography – Science 8 connection. • We will begin with a brief review of the Earth’s components (parts) and the forces, including tectonic forces and glaciation, that shape the surface of the Earth

13. Physical Regions of North America • Look at page 163 of your text • Continent of North America can be divided into 8 different geographic regions: • Appalachian Region • Coastal Plains • Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Lowland • Interior Plains • Canadian Shield • Western Cordillera • Intermountain Region • Arctic Region

15. Geographic Regions • These geographic divisions are based mainly on topography or the shape of the land • As you will see, the types of climate (patterns of weather) and vegetation (plants that grow naturally in an area) vary from one region to another