A Geography Student’s Beginning (You will find it on the pages just
before the Table of Contents)
GEOGRAPHIC
PERSPECTIVES
What is a geographic realm? Look it up in your book’s glossary (From
now on, I’ll just write “glossary”).
What is a spatial perspective? Can you use those terms (area,
distance, clustering...) correctly?
Contrast a geographer’s approach to a historians.
REALMS AND REGIONS
Why do geographers need classification terms?
Realms and Their Criteria
What are some examples of spatial criteria that define a realm?
Look at Figure G-2. Which realm are you most interested in other than
North America?
What does regional interaction mean?
Note the two groups of geographic realms.
REGIONS
AT SCALE
What’s the relationship between region and sub-region?
What’s a scale?
Will we be looking at large scale or small scale maps in this class?
THE PHYSICAL SETTING
What is physical geography? Why is it important in this class?
What is continental drift? Why is it important in this class?
Are Europe and North America getting closer or farther away from each
other? Why?
What is interglaciation? When and what is the Holocene?
Review the
hydrologic cycle.
Precipitation Distribution
Learn the general pattern of precipitation by interpreting the map and
reading the text.
Climatic Regions
Spend some time looking G-8. We’ll use it a lot to understand regions.
What are the problems of climate classification? What’s the relationship
between climate and vegetation?
Learn the Climate letter symbols. This will take time.
Write notes for each of the 6 Climate types (A, B, C, D, E, H). Where
are they? What are their characteristics (precipitation, temperature, soils)?
REGIONS AND CLUSTERS
What is physiography? Why is it important for this class?
What is the primary determinant of realms and regions?
What is culture? What aspects of culture will we focus on?
Cultural Landscapes
How are we agents of change?
What is cultural landscape? What were Sauer's ideas about cultural
landscapes? What are some features of the Central Valley’s cultural
landscape?
Culture and Ethnicity
What’s the difference between ethnicity and culture? What do these two
terms have to do with Yugoslavia?
REALMS OF POPULATION
This book has many large small-scale maps. Do not ignore them.
When the text refers to them, you should also refer to them. Look at
them.
Look at the dots. Approximately what % of the world’s population do
North Americans comprise?
In what physical regions are the major population clusters?
Major Population Clusters
What is population density? Where are the majority of China’s
people? What do they do for a living?
Where are the people of South Asia clustered?
How is the European cluster different from the previous two?
How does Eastern North America’s cluster differ from the previous three?
What is urbanization? How does it vary from region to region?
REALMS, REGIONS, AND STATES
What factors allowed states to develop? What is the European state
model?
What’s the relationship between state boundaries and realm boundaries?
PATTERNS OF DEVELOPMENT
What is development?
Learn the 4 World Bank groups and look at them on the map.
Why does he mention regional disparity?
What are advantages for development? What are ours?
What is neo-colonialism?
Symptoms of Underdevelopment
What are the symptoms of underdevelopment?
Specter of Debt
Be prepared to explain how former colonies have become debtor
countries. What is the role of the former colonial powers?
What is the relationship between debt and GNP in many poor countries?
Globalization
Summarize the Peasant Federation's leader's definition of
globalization?
What are benefits of globalization?
What are the arguments against globalization?
What and when was the first globalization?
How does higher-speed communication make the "present globalization
even more revolutionary."
Explain how political boundaries "are becoming increasingly
porous."
Learn the predicted results of the present globalization.
THE REGIONAL FRAMEWORK
Note how DeBlij has divided the world into 12 different realms.
GEOGRAPHY
What are the differences between regional and systematic geography?
Which of these approaches will be used in this textbook?