1. The Method of Geography

2. Geographers actually look at the world in three separate ways: 1) As a distinct physical body called earth; 2)As an interconnected physical, chemical, and biological environment, and; 3) As a place where human beings live. Geographers will apply these perspectives when analyzing any problem.

3. For example: Acid rain You have to know something about chemistry to understand how nitrogen oxide and sulphur dioxide react with moisture to produce acid. Biology helps us understand how acid rain will affect life forms. Economics will help us understand the cost of industry to install smokestack scrubbers to reduce pollution

4. So why consider these perspectives? A geographer will take information from these three fields and draw conclusions that will help government officials, owners of industry, and the general public

5. Geography deals mainly with spatial relationships between people and the Earth using the Geographic Method

6. The Geographic Method Geographers answer the following questions when trying to solve a problem: 1. Ask appropriate questions about the feature or activity being studied. Where is it? Why is it there? How is it arranged? What process led to its formation? 2. Collect geographic information that will help to answer these questions. This information can be obtained by doing surveys, field studies, and interviews.

7. 3. Organize, summarize, and display the geographic information gathered. You can do this by drawing maps, taking photos, and placing statistics in tabular, or graphic form. 4. Analyze and interpret the data you have collected and summarized. You can do this by analyzing patterns, making historical comparisons, projections, and comparing and contracting different situations. 5. Formulate a reasonable answer to the geographic questions based on your analysis and interpretation of the information gathered. See figure 1.4 and 1.5 on p. 8 and 9 of your text.