Transcript Geographic Method

The Method of Geography
Geographers actually look at the
world in three separate ways:
1) As a distinct physical body called earth;
2) As an interconnected physical, chemical,
and biological environment, and;
3) As a place where human beings live.
Geographers will apply these perspectives when
analyzing any problem.
For example: Acid rain
You have to know something about chemistry
to understand how nitrogen oxide and
sulphur dioxide react with moisture to
produce acid.
Biology helps us understand how acid rain will
affect life forms.
Economics will help us understand the cost of
industry to install smokestack scrubbers to
reduce pollution
So why consider these
perspectives?
A geographer will take information from
these three fields and draw conclusions
that will help government officials,
owners of industry, and the general
public
Geography deals mainly with
spatial relationships between
people and the Earth using the
Geographic Method
The Geographic Method
Geographers answer the following questions
when trying to solve a problem:
1. Ask appropriate questions about the feature
or activity being studied. Where is it? Why
is it there? How is it arranged? What
process led to its formation?
2. Collect geographic information that will help
to answer these questions. This information
can be obtained by doing surveys, field
studies, and interviews.
3. Organize, summarize, and display the
geographic information gathered. You can do
this by drawing maps, taking photos, and
placing statistics in tabular, or graphic form.
4. Analyze and interpret the data you have
collected and summarized. You can do this by
analyzing patterns, making historical
comparisons, projections, and comparing and
contracting different situations.
5. Formulate a reasonable answer to the
geographic questions based on your analysis
and interpretation of the information gathered.
See figure 1.4 and 1.5 on p. 8 and 9 of your text.