AP Human Geography

1. AP Human Geography September 19, 2012

2. AP Human Geography • A class that’s not a class • Wednesday nights 6:30 – 8:30pm • The value of attendance

3. AP Human Geography • AP Exam ($87) Friday, May 17 • 75 Multiple Choice Q’s in 60 minutes • 3 Free Response Essays in 75 minutes

4. AP Human Geography • Our class will cover the following topics: • The Nature & Perspectives of Geography • Human Populations • Cultural Patterns & Processes • Political Organizations of Space • Agriculture and Rural Land Use • Industrialization and Economic Development • Cities & Urban Land Use

5. The Nature & Perspective of Geography • What the study of geography includes • Key concepts (location, space, place, scale…) • Geographical skills • Geographic technology (GIS, Remote sensing, GPS) • Geographical data

6. Human Populations • Analyzing human populations from a geographic perspective • Population growth & decline over time • Population movements and migrations

7. Cultural Patterns & Processes • Cultural regions • Cultural differences (language, religion, ethnicity, gender) • Cultural landscapes & identity

8. Political Organizations of Space • Territorial dimensions of politics • Evolution of the contemporary political pattern • Changes and challenges of political-territorial arrangements (war)

9. Agriculture and Rural Land Use • Development and diffusion of agriculture • Major agricultural production regions • Rural land use and settlement • Modern commercial agriculture

10. Industrial and Economic Development • Growth and diffusion of industrialization • Contemporary patterns and impacts of industrialization

11. Cities & Urban land use • Development of cities • Models of urban systems • Models of city structure • Built environment and social space

12. The cool part of geography • We study geography to build an understanding of how people and cultures from different regions interact and impact each other. • We also study geography to challenge and test our conceptions of how the world is developing.

13. Hans Rosling (my stat hero)

14. Human Geo: Central Concepts • Space (the final frontier) • The geographic/geometric space that objects on the earth’s surface take up. • The earth’s spatial surface • Place • An area of bounded space that has human importance • Places often get toponyms (names) • Regions are a type of place that are discussed greatly in geography

15. Human Geo: Central Concepts • Scale • The relationship of an object or place to the earth as a whole. • Map scale: ratio of distance on a map to distance in the real world • Relative scale: (scale of analysis) the level of aggregation being considered

16. Human Geo: Central Concepts • Regions • There are many types of regions, and a single place can exist in several regions simultaneously. • Regions take on three forms: • Formal regions • Functional regions • Vernacular regions

17. Human Geo: Central Concepts • Formal Regions • An area of bounded space that possesses some homogeneous characteristic or uniformity. • In other words: across the region there is at least one thing that is the same everywhere within the regional boundary • Homogenous characters could be: language, food, architecture, climate, ethnicity, religion

18. Human Geo: Central Concepts • Functional Regions • Also called ‘nodal regions’: areas that have a central place (or node) that is a focus or point of origin that expresses some practical purpose • Types of functional regions include: market areas such as those for professional sports teams.

19. Human Geo: Central Concepts • Vernacular Regions • Based upon the perception or collective mental map of the region’s residents. • These regions are understood by a society or cultural group and would be difficult to place formal boundaries on.