Using Geography Skills

What is Geography?  The study of the Earth and its people.

Five Themes of Geography  Location – The position of a place on the Earth’s surface.  Absolute Location – The exact spot where something is located on the Earth’s surface.  Relative Location – Describes where things are in relation to other things.

Five Themes of Geography cont.  Place – Physical features of a location that make it unique.  Plants, landforms, animals, weather patterns, people, language  Human-Environment Interaction – how people affect the environment.

Five Themes of Geography cont.  Movement – explains how and why people move from place to place.  Regions – areas of the Earth’s surface that have several common characteristics such as land, natural resources, or population.  See page 18-20

Geographers Tools  Places in Time – Geographers learn about a place by studying how it changed over time  Decade, century, millennium  Four historical periods  Prehistory – until 5500 years ago  Ancient History – until 1500 years ago  Middle Ages – next 1000 years  Modern History – 500 years ago to the present

Maps and Globes  Globe – a round model of the Earth  Map – a flat drawing of the Earth  Problems?  Distortion

Goode’s Interrupted Equal Area Projection

Robinson Projection

Mercator Projection

Winkel Tripel Projection

Latitude and Longitude  Latitude lines are imaginary circles that run east to west  The middle is called the equator.  They are parallel.  Measure northern and southern location. 90°  Longitude lines run from the North Pole to the South Pole.  Middle line is the Prime Meridian in Greenwich, England.  The measure eastern and western location. 180°  These are used to measure exact location.

Hemispheres  The hemispheres are four equal pieces of the Earth.  The Earth is cut along the equator and the Prime Meridian.

Map Practice

Go to Text Page 26-33

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