Unique Locations: Identifying and Understanding Earth's Characteristics

1. Chapter 1

2. Key Issue 2 • Why is Each Point on Earth Unique • Place: unique location of a feature • Regions: Areas of unique characteristics

3. Place: Unique location of a feature • What are the four ways to identify location? • Place name • Site • Situation • Mathematical location

4. Place Names • Toponyms: Where does the name come from? • People • Religion • Landscape/Environment • Names can change • Political reasons

5. DISCUSSION • Where do names of some common places in this area come from? • Your School? • Your State? • Your country?

6. Site • Physical Character of a place • Climate • Water sources • Topography • Soil • vegetation • Latitude • elevation

7. Site • Physical characteristics important for settlement • Islands • Rivers • Can be manipulated by man

8. Site:Lower Manhattan Island Fig. 1-6: Site of lower Manhattan Island, New York City. There have been many changes to the area over the last 200 years.

9. DISCUSSION • Why do you think some people live in areas that are prone to natural disasters?

10. Situation • Location of a place relative to other places • 1) Helps us to find an unfamiliar place by comparing it to a familiar one • “Across from the fire station” • 2) Helps explain importance of location • Metro-access

11. Situation: Singapore Fig. 1-7: Singapore is situated at a key location for international trade.

12. DISCUSSION • How would you describe the “situation” of your school? • Your house? • Why would you do this instead of just giving the address?

13. Mathematical Location • Precise location (longitude & latitude) • Meridian (North-South poles) measure longitude • Prime Meridian: Greenwich, England • Parallel (Equator) measure latitude • Lat Lines are the FLAT lines

14. Telling Time • 24 time zones, one for each hour • Separated by 15° longitude • Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) • 12pm in Greenwich 0° • 7am in New York 75° West (-5hrs) • International Date Line, 180° longitude http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wk4XArc1xf4

15. Regions: Areas of Unique Characteristics • Cultural Landscape • Combination of cultural, economic & physical features

16. Cultural Landscape • Cultural Features • Language • religion • Economic Features • Agriculture • Industry • Physical Features • Climate • vegetation How is the New York region different than the DC Metro region?

17. Cultural Landscape • “Regional Studies Approach” • Each region has its own distinctive landscape due to combination of social relationships & physical processes • Similarities IN the region, differences OUT

18. Presidential Election 2004Regional Differences Fig. 1-10: Presidential election results by county & state illustrate differences in regional voting patterns.

19. Types of Regions • Area larger than a point, smaller than planet • Three types • Formal • Functional • Vernacular

20. Formal Region • Uniform/Homogeneous Region • Everyone shares distinctive characteristics • Examples: • Language • Climate • Political Ideology (Red Republican State) • Used to describe patterns of a region

21. Functional Region • Nodal Region • Organized around a focal point (node) • Reception of TV station • Distribution of Newspaper (Gazette)

22. Formal and Functional Regions Fig. 1-11: The state of Iowa is an example of a formal region; the areas of influence of various television stations are examples of functional regions.

23. Vernacular Region • Perceptual Region • What people envision as a place

24. Vernacular Regions Fig. 1-12: A number of features are often used to define the South as a vernacular region, each of which identifies somewhat different boundaries.

25. Spatial Association • Important to look at scale and characteristics within a region to understand factors • Cancer rates • United States: higher on East Coast • MD: higher in Baltimore and East counties • Baltimore: lower levels in Northern zip codes

26. Spatial Association at Various Scales Fig. 1-13: Death rates from cancer in the US, Maryland, and Baltimore show different patterns that can identify associations with different factors.

27. Regional Integration of Culture • Culture: distinct tradition of group of people • To care about • Similarities in ideas, beliefs, values, customs • To care of • Production of Material Wealth • Food, clothing, shelter • How do they obtain these things? • Human Geographers research differences in culture between: MDC: More developed country LDC: Less developed country

28. Cultural Ecology • Geographic study of Human-environment relationships • Environmental Determinism VSPossibilism • Environmental Determinism • Physical environment caused social development • Possibilism • People can adjust their environment Video 1

29. Cultural Ecology • Human geographers study relationships between human activities and physical environment • Why do we grow grass in the yard, use water to make it grow, then cut it??? • Are we going to run out of food for our growing population??? • What are we doing to our environment? • What can be done?

30. Global Environment • Climate • Vegetation • Soil • Landforms

31. Climate • Long-term average weather condition • Koppen System • Tropical • Dry • Warm Mid-Lat • Cold Mid-Lat • Polar

32. World Climate Regions Fig. 1-14: The modified Köppen system divides the world into five main climate regions.

33. Climate • Humans have limited tolerance for extreme temperature and precipitation levels • Who would want to live in these regions? • DRY or POLAR??? • Climate influences production of food • Monsoons in Southern Asia • Delay can cause wide-spread famine

34. Physical Processes: Vegetation • Vegetation & soil influence types of agriculture • Four main biomes: • Forest: trees form canopy over ground • Savanna: mixture of trees & grasses • Grassland: covered by grass, lack of trees • Desert: dispersed patches of plants

35. Physical Processes: Soil • Soil contains nutrients  plants  humans • Concerns with destruction of soil • Nature & human actions • Erosion • Depletion of nutrients

36. Physical Processes: Landforms • Geomorphology: study of Earth’s landforms • Explains distribution of people & economic activities • Topographic maps: show detail of physical features, ex: elevation

37. Topographic Maps • How might you use a topographic map if you were selecting? • 1. A route for a hike. • 2. The best location for an airport. • 3. A route for a new road

38. Environmental Modification in the Netherlands Fig. 1-15: Polders and dikes have been used for extensive environmental modification in the Netherlands.

39. The Netherlands • “God made Earth, but the Dutch made the Netherlands” • Polders: land created by draining water • Dikes: walls built to keep ocean out • Polder Dike Video

40. Florida • Barrier Islands along coast • Sea walls & Jetties built to prevent them from washing away. • Erosion • Everglades • Modifications made to open up land • Led to polluted waters

41. Environmental Modification in Florida Fig. 1-16: Straightening the Kissimmee River has had many unintended side effects.

42. C-38 CanalFlorida The canal has carried water with agricultural runoff and pollution into Lake Okeechobee