Why is Geography a Science? 5.A, 5.B, 7.B, 8.A, 8.B, 8.C, 9.A, 9.B,

Geography and History Geography and history are very similar, but unlike history, geography is attempting to identify important places and explain why certain human events happen near each other. Unlike history which explains dates and why events follow another. Geographers ask 2 main questions. 1. Where are people and activities found on Earth? 2. Why are those people and activities located where they are? Because geographers are able to travel to different places, there is a sense of immediacy to geography that history lacks.

Explaining Where and Why To explain where, geographers use maps. Maps help describe what we know about the Earth. Today maps are generated electronically and are quite accurate. There are several different concepts geographers use to explain why every place on Earth is in some way unique, yet also related to other locations. To explain why they are unique, they use the concepts of Place and Region. Place: a specific point on Earth distinguished by a particular characteristic. Region: An area of Earth defined by one or more distinctive characteristics

Explaining Where and Why To explain how they are related they use the concepts of Scale, Space, and Connection. Scale: The relationship between the portion of Earth being studied and the Earth as a whole. (Like a local shop in Italy selling goods made in China.) Space: This is the physical gap between two objects. Connection: This refers to relationships among people and objects across the barrier of space. (The United States and Canada are more connected than are the United States and Turkmenistan.)

Geography in the Ancient World The oldest surviving maps were created in the 7th or 6th century B.C. Geography was a major aspect of the ancient world. Among the ancient contributors were: Thales of Miletus: applied geometry to studying land mass. Pythagoras: Was the first to suggest that the Earth was round. Aristotle: Proved the Earth was round. Eratosthenes: He invented the word Geography as well as calculated the circumference of the Earth, among other things. During the first millennium A.D. maps became more fanciful and less mathematics based. This was not corrected until the middle ages.

Reading Maps Map Scale can be written as a fraction or written as a scale. Map Scale shows how long a unit of measure is depicted on a map. Projection is how cartographers draw the round image of earth onto a flat map. If a map is drawn as a square image it can lead to distortion in shape, size, and direction.

The Geographic Grid The earth is divided into a grid for location purposes. Lines on the grid that run North and South are called longitude lines, lines that run East and West are known as latitude lines. 0 degrees latitude is called the equator, and 0 degrees longitude is called the prime meridian. Longitude lines also play a major role in establishing time zones on the earth.

Contemporary Geographic Tools Modern geography is very accurate and dependent on things like Global Positioning Systems (GPS), which determine precise positions on Earth and Geographic Information (GIS), which is a system designed to capture and store geographic data.