Transcript File - Mrs. Goldstein`s Class

Chapter 1
Key Issue 2
 Why


is Each Point on Earth Unique
Place: unique location of a feature
Regions: Areas of unique characteristics
Place: Unique location of a
feature
 What
are the four ways to identify
location?




Place name
Site
Situation
Mathematical location
Place Names
 Toponyms:
from?
Where does the name come

People
Religion
Landscape/Environment

Names can change


 Political
reasons
DISCUSSION
 Where
do names of some common
places in this area come from?



Your School?
Your State?
Your country?
Site
 Physical







Character of a place
Climate
Water sources
Topography
Soil
vegetation
Latitude
elevation
Site
 Physical
characteristics important for
settlement



Islands
Rivers
Can be manipulated by man
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.
DISCUSSION
 Why
do you think some people live in
areas that are prone to natural disasters?
Situation
 Location
places

of a place relative to other
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
Situation: Singapore
Fig. 1-7: Singapore is situated at a key location for international trade.
DISCUSSION
 How
would you describe the “situation” of
your school?
 Your house?
 Why
would you do this instead of just
giving the address?
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
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
Regions: Areas of Unique
Characteristics
 Cultural

Landscape
Combination of cultural, economic &
physical features
Cultural Landscape
 Cultural


Features
 Economic
Language
religion


 Physical


Features
Agriculture
Industry
Features
Climate
vegetation
How is the New York region different than
the DC Metro region?
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
Presidential Election 2004
Regional Differences
Fig. 1-10: Presidential election results by county & state illustrate differences in regional
voting patterns.
Types of Regions
 Area
larger than a point, smaller than planet
 Three types



Formal
Functional
Vernacular
Formal Region
 Uniform/Homogeneous


Region
Everyone shares distinctive characteristics
Examples:
 Language
 Climate
 Political

Ideology (Red Republican State)
Used to describe patterns of a region
Functional Region
 Nodal

Region
Organized around a focal point (node)
 Reception
of TV station
 Distribution of Newspaper (Gazette)
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.
Vernacular Region
 Perceptual

Region
What people envision as a place
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.
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

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.
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
Cultural Ecology
 Geographic
study of Human-environment
relationships
 Environmental Determinism VS Possibilism
 Environmental Determinism


Physical environment caused social
development
Possibilism
People can adjust their environment
Video 1

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?
Global Environment
 Climate
 Vegetation
 Soil
 Landforms
Climate
 Long-term
average weather condition
 Koppen System





Tropical
Dry
Warm Mid-Lat
Cold Mid-Lat
Polar
World Climate Regions
Fig. 1-14: The modified Köppen system divides the world into five main climate regions.
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
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
Physical Processes: Soil
 Soil
contains nutrients  plants 
humans
 Concerns with destruction of soil
 Nature
& human actions
 Erosion
 Depletion of nutrients
Physical Processes: Landforms
 Geomorphology:
study of Earth’s
landforms
 Explains distribution of people &
economic activities
 Topographic maps: show detail of
physical features, ex: elevation
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
Environmental
Modification in
the Netherlands
Fig. 1-15: Polders and dikes have been used for extensive environmental modification in
the Netherlands.
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
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
Environmental
Modification in
Florida
Fig. 1-16: Straightening the Kissimmee River has had many unintended side effects.
C-38 Canal
Florida
The canal has carried water with
agricultural runoff and pollution
into Lake Okeechobee