Finding Our Place in the World

 History:  Study of events in time  What happened and when  Basic Tool of History:  Timeline  Geography:  Study of space and place  Where things happen  Basic Tool of Geography:  Map

 Physical Geography-  the study of the earth and its resources  Human Geography-  the study of man as he lives on the earth and uses its resources

 Mr. Lip  Movement- of people, goods, ideas, diseases  Region- defined by formal boundaries  Location- either specific or relative to the surrounding area  Interaction-among people and their environment  Place-physical characteristics and human characteristics

 Ancient Views of the Earth  Earliest surviving map: 2300 BC, Babylonian Empire

 Alexander the Great- rose to power in 336 BC  4 year march to unexplored areas- central Asia and India  Expanded Greeks knowledge of world geography  Erathosenes- lived BC  Wrote a book titled Geography, first to use the word  Thought world was a sphere and calculated the circumference at 25,000 miles  Hipparchus- 200 BC  Made a grid system to locate places easily  Ptolemy- 200 AD  Geocentric theory

 Christopher Columbus  Wanted a shortcut to the Orient, instead he….  Nicolaus Copernicus 1543  Heliocentric Theory  Gerhardus Mercator  Published map that became the standard in 1569  His system still used today

 Kings want survey of their land  Topography  Details land features and elevation  United States joins the map race  WWII increased efforts  Airplanes and Satellites  Made it possible for more detailed maps  Maps of the ocean floor  GPS- global positioning system  What remains unexplored?  Mountain peaks, caves, ocean floor

 Apollo 13 return trip  Dividing the globe into smaller sections  Hemispheres  North, South, East, West  Latitude and Longitude

 Two halves  Equator  Prime Meridian

 Latitude– imaginary lines that run east to west around the earth  Lines are parallel to the Equator  Numbered 0* at the Equator and 90* at the North and South poles  Distance from one degree of Lat. To the next is about 69 miles– still not precise enough  Broken down into minutes (60 minutes in each degree) then minutes into seconds (60 seconds in a minute)

 Lines called Meridians  Run North and South  The “equator” of longitude is called the Prime Meridian– located in Greenwich, England.  Measured in degrees, minutes and seconds  Highest degree is 180*-- Why?  Opposite meridian from PM creates the Great Circle

 Globes- great model of the earth, but…  Any method used to show the earth’s round surface on a flat map is called a Map Projection

 Earth’s surface is not flat like a piece of paper  Gores  Mapmakers try to reduce distortion in 4 areas  Area  Shape  Distance  Direction

 3 basic types of maps  Cylindrical  Planar  Conic  Get their names from the geometric surface onto which the globe is projected  Each try to address the weaknesses in the other

 Most common kind  Mapmaker rolls a sheet of paper around the globe Mercator’s Projection 1 st important cylindrical map Published 1569 Directions: consistent Shape:accurate Areas and Distance: distorted the further away from the Equator Goode’s Interrupted Projection Useful because… Areas:accurate Shape: good Distances and N/S Directions: distorted Robinson’s Projection Popular for textbooks Combines best from other 2 Minimizes all distortions Everything IS distorted, but just a little

 Work better on smaller scale… not world maps  Uses flat plane instead of cylinder  Touches globe only at 1 point Most accurate in the center, becomes distorted at the edges

 Mapmaker places a cone-shaped piece of paper on the globe, then opens and flattens the paper  Touches an entire line of latitude  Most useful for showing wide regions

 Physical maps that show changes in elevation  “Relief” refers to the height and depth of land features

 Technology now depicts elevation with color  Green- sea level  Yellow or light brown- slight rise in land  Dark brown, gray or white- mountains  Contour Lines separate the colors  Each line shows all the points on the map with the same altitude

 Page 13 in Textbook