Exploring Geography: Unveiling the Earth's Patterns and Connections

1. GEOGRAPHY! What the heck is that?

2. More than just countries and capitals… Geography - The study of where and how natural and human features and activities are distributed on the Earth’s surface, the relationships between them, how their distributions arose and how they change over time, and how those features and relationships affect human lives.

3. Important since the beginning of civilization… Lascaux, France – 17,000 YBP Is this the world’s first hunting map? Mesopotamia –6,200 BCE The oldest known map…and a tax map at that! First time the “Americas” appear on a map! Waldseemuller map - 1507 Why is this map significant to Americans?

4. Draws from many fields; A holistic approach…

5. Utilizes a wide array of tools… • Maps • Remotely-sensed data • Aerial photographs • Satellite imagery • Geographic Information Systems (GIS) • Field work (surveying, interviews, scientific measurements) • Archival work • Charts, diagrams, tables • Models • Five senses • “Geographical Imagination”

6. Asks questions and addressesissues in a unique way… Geography’s Five Themes:

7. LOCATION • Absolute location • Fixed location within a coordinate system (longitude and latitude) • Fixed elevation (not altitude!) above sea level • Fixed depth below sea level • “Site” – the collective attributes of a specific locale • Relative location • Position in relation to other places, features, or phenomena • “Situation” - the relationship between a locale and its surroundings

8. LOCATION Absolute YOU ARE HERE (give or take a few meters)

9. LOCATION Absolute Using satellites, GPS devices can fix your location to the nearest few inches The national borders of Saudi Arabia, Oman, Yemen, and the United Arab Emirates that run through the the Rub al Khali or “Empty Quarter” were not clearly defined until GPS technology arrived A simple GPS device, taken to the summit of Mt. Everest, determined that the peak is 29,035 feet high rather than 29,028 feet

10. LOCATION Relative

11. LOCATION Relative 1 hr 30 min 1 hr 15 min 1 hr 10 min Richmond 1 hr. 3 hr Virginia Beach 2 hr 30 min Chapel Hill Farmville: convenient to any number of interesting places!

12. LOCATION Relative YOU ARE HERE (give or take a few kilometers)

13. LOCATION Site Istanbul Although in a severe earthquake zone, the solid bedrock that makes up the land this city sits on has reduced the damage to historical monuments there. What city is this?

14. LOCATION Situation CHRISTENDOM COMMUNIST BLOC Bosporus Dardanelles North Anatolian Fault “WEST” ISLAM Istanbul is a crossroads in more ways than one!

15. PLACE • Transformation of natural landscapes into cultural landscapes by human action • Combined attributes of nature and culture differentiate places and make each place unique • Places shape human activity • As products of culture, places have meaning • As products of culture, places change over time • Places create a local dynamic that runs counter to globalization

16. PLACE Topkapi Palace (Turkish) Hagia Sophia (Byzantine/ Turkish Hippodrome (Roman) Blue Mosque (Turkish) The rich past of Istanbul makes it the interesting place that it is today Istanbul

17. PLACE Where would a cantaloupe cost over $170 US… Where would you need triple decker driving ranges… And where would they need to ever-so-politely cram you into a subway car? Tokyo

18. PLACE Tyson’s Corner Places change over time… Mr. Tyson Mr. Tyson’s dairy farm

19. MOVEMENT • Involves the flow and exchange of commodities, organisms, people and ideas between places • Channels and pathways – networks – are necessary for movement • Local issues can erect barriers and impede exchanges • Distance creates friction, but technological change can ease the flow • Movement – in the form of diffusion – creates interdependence • Globalization stems from interdependence

20. MOVEMENT Petroleum shipments from the Persian Gulf – carried in enormous supertankers – must navigate a series of sea lanes and chokepoints that concentrate their numbers in a relatively small area of our vast oceans…

21. MOVEMENT …which results in large amounts of oil being spilled in fragile coastal environments. Notice that the heaviest oil contamination is along sea lanes extending from the Persian Gulf to Europe and Japan.

22. MOVEMENT Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome SARS jumped from East Asia to North America via airline travel. This is why our government is so concerned about any disease that can be transmitted through the air, like Avian Flu (if it ever becomes a person-to-person disease). SARS cases worldwide: 8,439 confirmed; 812 deaths According to World Health Organization, July 4, 2002

23. HUMAN-ENVIRONMENT INTERACTIONS • Nature does not determine human actions and human activity cannot completely control nature • Relationship is usually a cycle of interaction, change, and response between and among cultures and natural systems • Humans assess environmental hazards through the lens of culture • Culture and the level of technology determine what “resources” are • Human impact on environments depends on numbers, culture, level of technology, and scale

24. HUMAN-ENVIRONMENT INTERACTIONS These three habitats are all solutions to the problem of surviving in the harsh conditions of the Sahara Desert in southern Tunisia. The top two use thick mud brick walls and white wash to insulate against and reflect some of the intense sun energy. The bottom solution involves digging underground or into hillsides, where the ground provides natural insulation.

25. HUMAN-ENVIRONMENT INTERACTIONS If you’re a film maker looking for an “other worldly” setting for your movie series, these habitats are so unfamiliar to Westerners that they might very well seem as if they come from a galaxy far, far away!

26. HUMAN-ENVIRONMENT INTERACTIONS Imagine how much time, effort, and human energy went into creating these terraced hillside for rice paddies!

27. HUMAN-ENVIRONMENT INTERACTIONS Modern technology allows us to have a much greater impact on the earth. We have incredible power, but does the fact that we CAN do something mean we SHOULD do something? This is the controversial Three Gorges Dam project in China – one of the largest dam projects ever. It will open up the Yangtze River to much larger ships, provide flood control, and generate electricity.

28. HUMAN-ENVIRONMENT INTERACTIONS It also will destroy one of the great natural wonders of the planet.

29. HUMAN-ENVIRONMENT INTERACTIONS Not to mention displacing literally millions of people. 2009 water level Wushan

30. REGIONS • Groupings of places according to pervasive similarities of chosen attributes across an area • Humans define regions by choosing the traits – physical and cultural – that are grouped together • Chosen traits are often part of a “regional landscape” • Groupings always involve generalizations or “spatial stereotypes” • Regions, like places, shape human activity • Regions, like places, change over time Formal region – an area in which the chosen trait is found uniformly throughout Functional region – an area where the trait is strongest at the center (core) and weakens with distance

31. REGIONS Regions based on branches within Buddhism would be examples of formal regions, because Mahayana Buddhists and Theraveda Buddhists are spread uniformly throughout each respective area.

32. REGIONS Sphere Core Domain From this map of Latter-Day Saints, it is possible to create a map of the Mormon culture region. This is an example of a functional region, because the concentration of Mormons decreases from the core around Salt Lake City, to the domain which encompasses Utah, and finally to the sphere that reaches into Nevada, Idaho, and New Mexico.

33. Why Geography? • Geography enables us to understand our place in the world, both figuratively and literally • Geography provides knowledge of Earth’s physical and human systems and the interdependence of all things, which provides the basis for making informed, ethical choices that are in the best interests of our world • Geography stimulates curiosity about our diverse planet, which overcomes ignorance, insularity, parochialism, and ethnocentrism • Geography makes us better-informed citizens of the world, better able to make wiser decisions, and better equipped to solve issues on both a local and global level