Chapter 1: Basic Concepts You found It! Chapter 1: Basic Concepts Your Text Here The Cultural Landscape: An Introduction to Human Geography

Taking Notes In your notebook, you will take notes from the PowerPoint and from your readings in each chapter. The following is a kind of Cornell Note-taking method. You do not have to follow this method of notetaking; however your sophomore, junior, and senior social studies classes do require it, so you might want to start getting used to it. The PowerPoint notes go on the left hand side of each page, and your reading notes will go on the right hand side of each page. The PPT notes and your reading notes about the same topic/concept should align with each other on the page. Any unknown vocabulary and its definition will go at the bottom of the page. If you have any questions, email me. I will get back to you as quickly as I can. If you do not hear from me within two days, send me a reminder. cynthia.cox@carrollcountyschools.com

Thorough Reading Have you ever read something where you are ten pages into it and have no idea what you have just read? I know I have, and it is so frustrating because I just had to start over. We do not want to do that here (or anywhere as far as that is concerned) because it is a waste of our time. I don’t know about you, but I would rather be doing something else than reading the same thing over, and over, and over again.

Thorough Reading--Continued So the way you get it done the first time is by having a strategy—or in this case, several strategies. The following strategies have been used by many of us over the years, but Salisbury University in Maryland put them together in a nice checklist that you will find along with explanations at the following link http://www.salisbury.edu/counseling/new/7_critical_reading_strategies.html

Thorough Reading Or—I have provided a summary on the next few pages 7 CRITICAL READING STRATEGIES 1.  Previewing: Learning about a text before really reading it. A. How it is organized ? B. What you can learn from the head notes or other introductory material? C. Skim to get an overview of the content and organization D. Identify the rhetorical situation.  2.  Contextualizing: Placing a text in its historical, biographical, and cultural contexts. When you read a text, you read it through the lens of your own experience. Your understanding of the words on the page and their significance is informed by what you have come to know and value from living in a particular time and place. This will not figure so much in Human Geography because much of our material is current.

Thorough Reading 3.  Questioning to understand and remember: Asking questions about the content. (History and Science books are great for turning the titles of each section into a question. Then you can answer the question as you read, and you won’t be wasting your time). Especially in difficult academic readings, you will understand the material better and remember it longer if you write a question for every paragraph or brief section. Make sure you answer it in your own words. 4.  Reflecting on challenges to your beliefs and values: Examining your personal responses. The reading that you do for this class might challenge your attitudes, your unconsciously held beliefs, or your positions on current issues. As you read a text for the first time, mark an X in the margin at each point where you feel a personal challenge to your attitudes, beliefs, or status. Make a brief note in your notes about what you feel or about what in the text created the challenge. Now look again at the places you marked in the text where you felt personally challenged. What patterns do you see?  

Thorough Reading *5.  Outlining and summarizing: Identifying the main ideas and restating them in your own words. Outlining and summarizing are especially helpful strategies for understanding the content and structure of a reading selection. The main ideas form the backbone, the strand that holds the various parts and pieces of the text together. If you take good notes as you read, you should not have to reread the text; you will be able to study from your notes. -Summarizing begins with outlining, but instead of merely listing the main ideas, a summary recomposes them to form a new text. Whereas outlining depends on a close analysis of each paragraph, summarizing also requires creative synthesis. Putting ideas together again -- in your own words and in a condensed form -- shows how reading critically can lead to deeper understanding of any text. 

Thorough Reading 6.  Evaluating an argument: Testing the logic of a text as well as its credibility and emotional impact. (We will not have to deal with this too much—but you may find some writer bias; it is difficult to find a written manuscript without some bias). 7.  Comparing and contrasting related readings: Exploring likenesses and differences between texts to understand them better. You will find as we read ongoing chapters in the book how they much of what we read will relate back to a previous chapter. So do not skip a chapter or you may find yourself struggling later on.

Thorough Reading As you read your book, do not skip those sections in the front that tell you about your book. The entire format and logic behind that format is explained. This will make finding information much easier on you in the long run. So look over that table of context to see the types of things which are covered in each chapter; notice that each chapter begins and ends with a case study, has four sections referred to as key issues, vocabulary referred to as key terms, and a higher thinking skills section “Thinking Geographically”. The book, furthermore, has a map appendix, key terms section, and an index (do you remember how to use one?). If not, relearn. Internet access will make this class much easier on you; however, if you do not have it at home, plan accordingly. The public library offers free Internet. Most restaurant now offer free Internet. During the school year, you may plan a couple of days a week to arrive early and stay late to use a computer in my room or to visit the public library. The Internet is essential to success in the modern classroom.

Defining Geography Your notes should begin with the introduction even before Key Issue one. I believe all of the vocabulary words in here are also included on your vocabulary list. However, if you find a word here that is NOT on your vocabulary list, add that word to your vocabulary words. Also, let me know, so I can make adjustments to the list. Word coined by Eratosthenes Geo = Earth Graphia = writing Geography thus means “earth writing”

Contemporary Geography Geographers ask where and why Location and distribution are important terms Geographers are concerned with the tension between globalization and local diversity A division: physical geography and human geography

Geography’s Vocabulary Place Region Scale Space Connections

Maps Two purposes As reference tools As communications tools To find locations, to find one’s way As communications tools To show the distribution of human and physical features

Early Map Making Figure 1-2

Maps: Scale Types of map scale Projection Ratio/fraction Written Graphic Projection Distortion Shape Distance Relative size Direction

Figure 1-4

U.S. Land Ordinance of 1785 Township and range system Township = 6 sq. miles on each side North–south lines = principal meridians East–west lines = base lines Range Sections

Township and Range System Figure 1-5

Contemporary Tools Geographic Information Science (GIScience) Global Positioning Systems (GPS) Remote sensing Geographic information systems (GIS) Figure 1-7

A Mash-up Figure 1-8

Place: Unique Location of a Feature Place names Toponym Site Situation Mathematical location

Place: Mathematical Location Location of any place can be described precisely by meridians and parallels Meridians (lines of longitude) Ex. Prime meridian Parallels (lines of latitude) Ex. The Equator

The Cultural Landscape A unique combination of social relationships and physical processes Each region = a distinctive landscape People = the most important agents of change to Earth’s surface

Types of Regions Formal (uniform) regions Functional (nodal) regions Example: Montana Functional (nodal) regions Example: the circulation area of a newspaper Vernacular (cultural) regions Example: the American South

Culture Origin from the Latin cultus, meaning “to care for” Two aspects: What people care about Beliefs, values, and customs What people take care of Earning a living; obtaining food, clothing, and shelter

Cultural Ecology The geographic study of human–environment relationships Two perspectives: Environmental determinism Possibilism Modern geographers generally reject environmental determinism in favor of possibilism

Physical Processes Climate Vegetation Soil Landforms *These four processes are important for understanding human activities

Modifying the Environment Examples The Netherlands Polders The Florida Everglades Figure 1-21

Scale Globalization Economic globalization Cultural globalization Transnational corporations Cultural globalization A global culture?

Space: Distribution of Features Distribution—three features Density Arithmetic Physiological Agricultural Concentration Pattern

Space–Time Compression Figure 1-29

Spatial Interaction Transportation networks Electronic communications and the “death” of geography? Distance decay Figure 1-30

Diffusion The process by which a characteristic spreads across space and over time Hearth = source area for innovations Two types of diffusion Relocation Expansion Three types: hierarchical, contagious, stimulus

Relocation Diffusion: Example Figure 1-31

The End. Up next: Population