What do you notice?

What do you notice?

These are pictures all taken by the famous landscape photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand.They are aerial images taken over five years across the world. What questions might you have about these pictures?

What questions might you have about these pictures?

What questions might you have about these pictures?

Welcome to the World of Geography!

Geography is….. Geography is the field of study that tries to make sense of the world around by looking at what places are like and then asking how people, places and environments came to be and how they affect each other.

Physical means relating to things that can be seen or felt. Physical Geography Physical means relating to things that can be seen or felt. Physical geography is the study of natural features on the surface of the earth.

Human Geography Human geography is the study of people as they have spread across the Earth Human geographers seek to understand who lives where, how and why. They are also interested in human-made features such as towns, farms, dams and roads.

What would interest a Human Geographer about this picture?

What would interest a Physical Geographer about this picture?

Geographic Inquiry Process Geography is a very old field of study. Around 450 BCE a Greek scholar named Herodotus created the first map of the known world.

Asking geographic questions Herodotus began by asking geographic questions What is the world like? What lands and seas cover Earth? What peoples does the world contain? Where do they live?

Acquiring geographic information To acquire knowledge Herodutus needed geographic information. He traveled widely and interviewed travelers and traders. They told him tales about near and far lands. In this way Herodutus learned about peoples and places he would never see. Once Herodotus had collected his information, he needed to organize it in some way.

Analyzing Geographic Information To analyze means to examine something in more detail to discover more about it. Analyzing geographic information means seeing patterns and making connections. At the end of Herodotus tried to answer questions that he had started with. He also recorded conclusions about people based on his analysis and people still read his books today.

Why Maps? For geographers maps are tools that show where things are located on earth. With these tools we can find the absolute location of any place on earth. There are many ways that you can indicate absolute location an example of this might be your street address or geographic coordinates.

Maps also show the relative location of places on earth, that is the location of one place compared to another.

Physical Features of the World Goode’s Homolosine projection Physical Features of the World

Essential Question for our unit: How do geographers show information on maps?