GEOG 303

GEOG 303.03 and .72 Geography and World Affairs

Syllabus

Spring 2013 Dr. Scott Brady
Office: 523 Butte Hall Location: Cyberspace

Office Hours: MWF 11-12:40

Men are so inclined to content themselves with what is commonest; the spirit and the senses so easily grow dead to the impressions of the beautiful and perfect, that every one should study, by all methods, to nourish in his mind the faculty of feeling these things... For this reason, one ought every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.

Goethe, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship. Bk. v, ch. 1 (Carlyle, tr.) [source: Stevenson]

General Education:

THEME G: GLOBAL ISSUES

Course Description:

This course is a geographical survey of several of the world's major regions with emphasis on those features important to an understanding of cultural differences and economic and human sustainability. This course presents fundamental geographic concepts in the context of the world's places and regions. Special emphasis is placed on factors that link and isolate peoples of the world.

Course Objectives:

To increase students understanding of their local geographical context.
To develop students' knowledge of the earth's physical systems and
To develop students' knowledge of their connections to, and interdependencies with, other people and places around the world.
To develop students' skills in synthesizing and analyzing information, including Internet-based information.
To develop students' skills in writing and discussing their ideas.
To help students read, listen, observe, and reason critically.

Course Format: This is an online readings course. We never meet. We read, do exercises, take 3 exams and write a paper. Students may utilize the chat room feature on our Vista site. I will not monitor chats and they will not be graded. Students should utilize the chat room as a support tool. You can exchange questions, information and helpful hints in the chat room.

Email: Students should utilize the email feature on our Vista site for all communication with me. Sometimes students ask questions that are shared by other students. In such cases, I'll post my answer as an announcement on the Vista site.

Office Hours: I also will use office hours to answer students’ email inquiries. This will require patience. Students should not expect immediate responses to emails. I will respond only during office hours.

Website: will regularly update the course website. Students must visit the site to be aware of changes and additions. You will find links to websites embedded in each week of the course. I will also post questions beneath these links that will guide your viewing of these sites. The information that I guide you to will be covered on exams.

Readings: A fundamental element of a liberal education is the development of the ability to read critically. Hence, your success in this course largely depends on the amount of time and effort you devote to the assigned readings.

Question Sets: To ensure that students keep up with the assigned readings, students must complete question sets that guide them through assigned textbook readings. You do not turn in question sets to be graded. You simply complete them to prepare yourself for the exams. I post question set keys every week or so, so that you may check your answers against mine.

Atlas Exercises: Students will complete several atlas exercises during the course. These are self-directed exercises that you will not turn in to me. Similar to questions sets, I post keys every week or so, so that you may check your answers against mine. I use atlas exercise to create exam questions.

Exams: There are 3 exams. They are open book exams that include information from the readings, question sets, atlas exercises other materials that I direct you to through the web-site. Exams contain 25-30 multiple choice/short answer questions. I will make exams available for a 4-day period. Students will have ~60 minutes to complete exams.

Make-up Exams: I do not allow students to make-up missed exams.

Optional Research Project: Students have the option of completing a research project in this course. The research project is an annotated bibliography of at least 1500 words. It has two parts: a proposal and the final project. The instructions for the proposal are at this link. The instructions for the final project are at this link. Here's a past example of an annotated bibliography: link. Students will turn in this project in the body of an email, not as an email attachment. You will send your proposal and annotated bibliography to my email address: sbrady@csuchico.edu.

Plagiarism: Unfortunately, students have committed plagiarism on their annotated bibliographies during past semesters. They copied work from an online source and presented it as their own. I referred these students to judicial affairs and asked that they receive the most severe penalty. I will continue to do so.

The University catalogue http://www.csuchico.edu/catalog/cat05/ includes an overly general description of activities that constitute plagiarism. I have included it below.

"Plagiarism: Copying homework answers from your text to hand in for a grade; failing to give credit for ideas, statement of facts, or conclusions derived from another source; submitting a paper downloaded from the Internet or submitting a friend's paper as your own; claiming credit for artistic work (such as a music composition, photo, painting, drawing, sculpture, or design) done by someone else."

You must use in-text citations to give credit to your sources. If you have any questions about plagiarism, please contact me.

Grades:

Academic Policies and Regulations

Final grades are based on % of 200 or 150 total points, earned from the categories below.
A=92-100%; B= 80-91%; C=68-79%; D=50-67%; and F= less than 50%.

Exam 1	50 points
Exam 2	50 points
Exam 3	50 points
Research Project	50 points
Total	200 points

If you choose not to complete the research project, your grade will be based on 3 exams. See below

Exam 1	50 points
Exam 2	50 points
Final Exam	50 points
Total	150 points

Required Materials:

CSU-Chico's bookstore will have these books. You should also bargain shop online. I like http://www.abebooks.com/

de Blij, Harm and P. O. Muller. 2005. Concepts and Regions in Geography, 1st or 2nd edition. John Wiley & Sons: New York. ISBN 0-471-64991-0

Goode's World Atlas, 22nd edition. Rand McNally.
de Blij, Harm. 2008. The Power of Place Geography, Destiny, and Globalization's Rough Landscape. Oxford University Press

Friedman, Thomas. 2009. HOT,FLAT,+CROWDED (2009).. ISBN: 9780312428921

Online Resources:

Language, Vocabulary and Esoterica

Magazines and Newspapers

Maps

Population

Religion

Tentative Schedule:

Week 1: (1/28-2/1)

Course requirements; Introduction to Geography

Question Set 1: From Concepts and Regions in Geography.