Where are the major ancient civilizations located? What are the significant geographical features of those locations? What geographical features do these locations have in common? How did these geographical features affect how people survived in these locations? How can geographical features affect survival in wilderness areas of the world?

Geography is the study of the Earth’s surface and the way people use it. Geographical features are landforms and bodies of water.

Let’s Pretend!!!! You have been hired by the National Park Service to travel to a wilderness area in the United States. You must subsist on just the land without additional supplies as part of a study being done by the Park Service. Given a map of the geographical features of the wilderness area, you must choose a site where you will settle and can survive for two years.

Before you begin your challenge, let’s travel back in time to see if the earliest people cared about geography!

Before cavemen were using computers, they survived by hunting and gathering. Early man probably began to migrate from Africa to other parts of the world about 100,000 years ago. By 12,000 years ago, these small bands of survivors had expanded to Asia, Europe, Australia, and the Americas. BUT SURVIVAL WAS THE FOCUS!!!!!!

About 10,000 years ago, some early people began farming. Early people began planting seeds from carefully selected wild plants. People began to domesticate or tame animals, too.

Middle America Andean Tigris- Euphrates Valley Huang He Valley Nile Valley Indus Valley

So why did farming develop in the areas of the world where it did?

People began to settle in permanent homes in small settlements in the early farming regions. About 5,500 years ago, the earliest cities formed. Within these cities, complex societies or civilizations developed.

A civilization is a centralized society with developed forms of religion, ways of governing, and learning. We will study some of the earliest civilizations this year. What are these civilizations? Where are these ancient civilizations located? Why did large, powerful civilizations develop in these regions of the world?

This unit is called GPS (Global Positioning System). You will use a GPS to locate Ancient Civilizations on the map screen of the world and mark waypoints that can be transferred to your map on Arcview.

Where are the major ancient civilizations located? What are the significant geographical features of those locations? What geographical features do these locations have in common? How did these geographical features affect how people survived in these locations? How can geographical features affect survival in wilderness areas of the world?