Geography: It’s Nature and Perspectives

1. Geography: It’s Nature and Perspectives Topic I

2. Explain the importance of geography as a field of study Why is Geography a Science? • Field of inquiry • ask questions and gather evidence • “why of where” • Geography: the study of where things are found on Earth’s surface and the reasons for the locations • analysis of the spatial relationship between phenomena (objects that can be sensed or something perceived or mentally constructed) • Ex. relationship between climate and agricultural production

3. Explain the importance of geography as a field of study Why is Geography a Science? “Each place we see is affected by and created by people, and each place reflects the culture of the people in that place over time.” • To study human geography is to understand and explain the theme of human activity interacting with the environment.

4. Explain the importance of geography as a field of study Why is Geography a Science? • Studying human geography requires a spatial perspective • spatial: pertaining to the space on Earth’s surface; synonym for geographic • differing scales interact and affect each other • What happens at the global scale affects the local, but it also affects the individual, regional, and national. Similarly, the processes at these scales influence the global.

5. Explain the importance of geography as a field of study Why is Geography a Science? …What happens at the global scale affects the local, but it also affects the individual, regional, and national. Similarly, the processes at these scales influence the global… Ex. President Obama, in May 2016, sent a letter directing school districts directing to allow transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms that match his or her chosen gender identity. • national (U.S.) issue that affects the individual at the local scale

6. Explain major geographical concepts underlying the geographic perspective Why is Geography a Science? • 5 Themes of Geography (spatial study) • Movement • Region • Human-Environment Interaction • Location • Place

7. Explain major geographical concepts underlying the geographic perspective What Are Geographic Questions? Movement • Movement refers to the mobility of people, goods, and ideas across the surface of the planet. • Spatial interaction between places depends on: • The distances among places • The accessibility of places • The transportation and communication connectivity among places

8. Explain major geographical concepts underlying the geographic perspective What Are Geographic Questions? Human-environment interactions A spatial perspective invites consideration of the relationship between humans and the physical world. Asking locational questions often means looking at the reciprocal relationship between humans and environments.

9. Explain major geographical concepts underlying the geographic perspective What Are Geographic Questions? Region Features of the Earth’s surface tend to be concentrated in particular areas, which we call regions. Understanding the regional geography of a place allows us to make sense of much of the information we have about places.

10. Explain major geographical concepts underlying the geographic perspective What Are Geographic Questions? Location Highlights how the geographical position of people and things on Earth’s surface affects what happens and why Helps to establish the context within which events and processes are situated

11. Explain major geographical concepts underlying the geographic perspective What Are Geographic Questions? Place People develop a sense of place by infusing a place with meaning and emotion. We also develop perceptions of places where we have never been through books, movies, stories, and pictures.

12. Use and interpret maps

13. Use and interpret maps

14. Explain the importance of geography as a field of study Why is Geography a Science? • Geographers seek to explain why places are unique but also why they are related to other places • place • region • scale • space • connections • Luxembourg • Describe Ruston in terms of place, regionetc…

15. Explain major geographical concepts underlying the geographic perspective Geographic Perspective: Place • Place: a specific point on Earth distinguished by a particular characteristic • The place of the city, Luxembourg, is atop a hill overlooking the Alzette River. • place is a unique location • “sense of place” • toponym (place name)

16. Explain major geographical concepts underlying the geographic perspective Geographic Perspective: Place • Site vs situation • site: physical character of a place • Ex. climate, water source, vegetation, topography • site factors are important for choosing settlement locations • situation: location of a place in relation to another • Ex. RHS is across the street from the Lambright • situtation helps geographers understand the importance of a place

17. Define region as a concept, identify world regions, and understand regionalization processes Geographic Perspective: Region • Region: an area on Earth with one or more distinctive characteristics. • Formal, functional, vernacular • Places can be in multiple regions simultaneously • Regions vary in size • Regionalization: process of describing the earth in small, distinct areas

18. Define region as a concept, identify world regions, and understand regionalization processes Geographic Perspective: Region • Formal Region: (uniform region) an area within which everyone shares in common one or more distinctive characteristics • language, agricultural production, climate, • political entities (Montana or France) with particular boundaries, laws, taxes • predominant characteristic (not 100%) • Republican or Democrat election victories

19. Define region as a concept, identify world regions, and understand regionalization processes Geographic Perspective: Region • formal region contin… • pure characteristics are 100% shared among all • aggregate characteristic are dominant among the group but not 100%

20. Define region as a concept, identify world regions, and understand regionalization processes Geographic Perspective: Region • Functional Region: (nodal region) an area organized around a node of focal point • characteristic is more dominant the close to the node and less dominant as distance increases • distance decay: the diminished importance and eventual disappearance of a phenomenon with increasing distance from its origin • Ex. TV or radio stations

21. Define region as a concept, identify world regions, and understand regionalization processes Geographic Perspective: Region • Vernacular Region: (perceptual region) an area that people believe exists as part of their cultural identity • Ex. the South

22. Define region as a concept, identify world regions, and understand regionalization processes Geographic Perspective: Region • Regions exhibit spacial association • spatial association: the distribution of one feature is related to the distribution of another • Ex. Crime and liquor stores, other examples?

23. Explain major geographical concepts underlying the geographic perspective Geographic Perspective: Scale • Scale: relationship between the portion of the Earth studied and the Earth as a whole • local, regional, global • globalization: a force or process that involves the entire world and results in making something worldwide in scope • technology “shrinks” the world; places are more interconnected • globalization of the economy • transnational corporations

24. Explain major geographical concepts underlying the geographic perspective Geographic Perspective: Scale • Globalization vs Local Diversity • Geographers seek to explain the tension between local cultural diversity in an increasingly globalized world • increasingly uniform cultural preferences • increasingly uniform cultural landscape • cultural landscape: combination of cultural features such as language or religion, economic features such as industry and agriculture, and physical features such as climate and vegetation

25. Explain major geographical concepts underlying the geographic perspective Geographic Perspective: Space • Space: the physical gap or interval between two objects • Geographers “think spatially”…”why of where” • distribution: the arragement of a feature in space • density • concentration • pattern

26. Explain major geographical concepts underlying the geographic perspective Geographic Perspective: Space • Density: the frequency with which something occurs • Ex. how many in a given area • Concentration: the extent of a feature’s spread over a given area • clustered or dispersed • *Random distribution: neither clustered not dispersed • Pattern: geometric arrangement of objects in space • linear, rectangular, grid, irregular,

27. Explain major geographical concepts underlying the geographic perspective Geographic Perspective: Space • Space and Distance • absolute distancevs travel distance • travel time • distance decay • friction of distance: the amount of time it takes to get from one place to another; decreases as technology increases • space-time compression: describes the reduction in time it takes for something to reach another palace • cognitive distance: the perceived distance between two places

28. Explain major geographical concepts underlying the geographic perspective Geographic Perspective: Space • Inequality • contemporary geographers seek to explain differences in equality, especially in gender, ethnicity, and sexuality • poststructuralist • humanistic • behavioral

29. Explain major geographical concepts underlying the geographic perspective Geographic Perspective: Space • Poststructuralist • examines how the powerful/elite dominate space • Humanistic • emphasizes the ways that individuals form ideas about place and give those places symbolic meaning • Ex. Christopher Street in NYC • Behavioral • emphasizes the importance of understanding the psychological basis for individual actions in space • Ex. husband vs wife daily actions

30. Explain major geographical concepts underlying the geographic perspective Geographic Perspective: Connections • Connections are the relationships between people and objects across space • technology reduces connection time • Connections result in • assimilation • acculturation • syncretism

31. Explain major geographical concepts underlying the geographic perspective Geographic Perspective: Connections assimilation: the adoption of a new culture; the process by which a group’s cultural features are altered to resemble another acculturation: learning how to operate within a new culture; changes within a culture from meeting another syncretism: the combination of elements of two groups into a new cultural feature

32. Explain major geographical concepts underlying the geographic perspective Geographic Perspective: Connections • diffusion: process by which a feature spreads across space from one place to another over time • relocation diffusion • expansion diffusion • hearth: place where a feature originates

33. Explain major geographical concepts underlying the geographic perspective Geographic Perspective: Connections • relocation diffusion: spread of an idea through physical movement • expansion diffusion: spread of a feature in an additive process • hierarchical • contagious • stimulus

34. Explain major geographical concepts underlying the geographic perspective Geographic Perspective: Sustainability • Geographers are concerned with the availability of resources in the present and future • resource • useful substances • sustainability • availability for future use • renewable resources • use more slowly • nonrenewable resources • use more quickly

35. Explain major geographical concepts underlying the geographic perspective Geographic Perspective: Sustainability • Three Pillars of Sustainability • environment • society • economy

36. Explain major geographical concepts underlying the geographic perspective Geographic Perspective: Sustainability • Environmental Pillar • conservationand preservation • Societal Pillar • individual’s and society’s choice of consumer products • Economic Pillar

37. Explain major geographical concepts underlying the geographic perspective Geographic Perspective: Sustainability Critics says, particularly the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) believe the Earth is past the point of sustainability. Other critics say resource availability has no maximum

38. Explain major geographical concepts underlying the geographic perspective Geographic Perspective: Sustainability • Natural resources are classified into 4 systems • atmosphere • hydrosphere • lithosphere • biosphere (biotic) • Each is either biotic or abiotic • biotic: living organisms • abiotic: nonliving or inorganic matter

39. Explain major geographical concepts underlying the geographic perspective Geographic Perspective: CulturalEcology • Modification of the environment due to technological innovations • negative consequences to the ecosystem • ecology: study of ecosystems • cultural ecology: geographic study of human-environment relationships • Two fields of thought • environmental determinism • possibilism

40. Explain major geographical concepts underlying the geographic perspective Geographic Perspective: CulturalEcology • Environmental Determinism • Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) • Carl Ritter (1779-1859) • believed the physical environment caused social development (or lack of) • Friedrich Ratzel (1844-1932) • geography is the study of the influences of the natural environment on people • Ellsworth Huntington (1876-1947) • climate is a major determinant of a civilization

41. Explain major geographical concepts underlying the geographic perspective Geographic Perspective: CulturalEcology • Possibilism • modern geographic thought • physical environment may limit some actions, but people can adjust to the environment • Possibilism and Sustainability • geographers use cultural geography to determine if an activity is sustainable • Ex. world population vs food production (Malthus - Ch. 2)

42. Explain major geographical concepts underlying the geographic perspective Geographic Perspective: Environmental Change • Geographers seek to understand how and why people modify the natural environment • Ex. Netherlands • polder: land that is created by draining water • agricultural use • social use • Ex. California • lack of rainfall (drought) • 80% of surface water used for agriculture

43. Use landscape analysis to examine the human organization of space Geographic Perspective: Landscapes • landscape: an area less defined than a region and is described in an abstract manner • Carl Sauer looked at landscape as an assemblage of different elements that came together in one area • humans can alter landscapes • exist at different spatial scales • can visual or tangible

44. Use landscape analysis to examine the human organization of space Geographic Perspective: Landscapes • ordinary landscape: (vernacular landscape) people encounter on a daily basis • iconic landscape: brings to mind images and symbols essential to identity • Ex. Statue of Liberty • interior landscape: inside buildings

45. Use landscape analysis to examine the human organization of space Geographic Perspective: Landscapes

46. Use and interpret maps Maps • The geographer’s main tool is a map • Communication tool • Reference tool • Cartography (mapmaking) has been around since about 6200 B.C. • Map Projection • Types of Maps

47. Use and interpret maps What patterns do you notice? Why?

48. Use and interpret maps What patterns do you notice?

49. Use and interpret maps What conclusion can you draw?

50. Use and interpret maps How has the U.S. population changed over time?