Chapter 1: This is Geography

Learning Objectives- After reading this chapter and coming to class you should be able to:
1.1	Compare and contrast geography and history in terms of what geographers and historians do.
1.2	Summarize geography’s five most basic concepts.
1.3	Trace the development of geography in the ancient world through the Middle Ages to the Age of Exploration.
1.4	Identify contemporary analytic tools of geographers, including remote sensing, GPS, and GIS.
1.5	Describe the role of volunteered geographic information (VGI) and mashups in contemporary geography.
1.6	Explain three ways of representing scale on a map: ratio scales; written scales; and graphic scales.
1.7	Discuss how map projections are used to solve the problem of distortion in flat maps.
1.8	Define geographic grid.
1.9	Compare and contrast the characteristics of both latitude lines and longitude lines.
1.10	Explain how latitude and longitude are used to locate points on Earth’s surface.
1.11	Explain how we use longitude to establish time zones.
1.12	Summarize the historical search in England in the 1700s for a way to measure longitude accurately.
1.13	Explain how geographers can use characteristics such as location, site, situation, and toponyms to describe the unique nature of place.
1.14	Define cultural landscape.
1.15	Classify regions as functional, formal, or vernacular.
1.16	Explain how the process of globalization impacts the cultural landscape, local diversity, and access to communication.
1.17	Cite examples of changes in economy and culture occurring at global and local scales.
1.18	Explain how geographers use spatial association to study the relationships among features of a region.
1.19	Define density, concentration, and pattern as properties of distribution across space.
1.20	Describe how patterns can vary in time and space.
1.21	Illustrate how distribution and patterns in space can vary according to gender, sexuality, and ethnicity.
1.22	Discuss the impact of electronic communications in the context of the inequality between core and periphery and the problem of uneven development.
1.23	Identify diffusion, hearth, and spatial interaction.
1.24	State three ways in which cultural groups can change as a result of connections across space.
1.25	Describe the role of networks, distance decay, and space–time compression in spatial interactions.
1.26	Explain how the three aspects of sustainability are connected to each other.
1.27	Identify the four spheres of the Earth system.
1.28	Explain how the ecosystems that make up the biosphere interact with Earth’s abiotic systems.
1.29	Compare and contrast environmental determinism and possibilism.
1.30	Evaluate the sustainability and environmental modifications of ecosystems in the Netherlands and California.

Terms-  You should understand these terms and be ready to identify them:
Cartography The science of making maps.
Concentration The spread of something over a given area.
Connection Relationships among people and objects across the barrier or space.
Contagious diffusion  The rapid, widespread diffusion of a feature or trend throughout a population.
Cultural landscape Fashioning of a natural landscape by a cultural group.
Density The frequency with which something exists within a given unit of area.
Diffusion The process of spread of a feature or trend from one place to another over time.
Distance decay The diminishing in importance and eventual disappearance of a phenomenon with increasing distance from its origin.
Distribution The arrangement of something across Earth's surface.
Environmental determinism A nineteenth- and early twentieth-century approach to the study of geography that argued that the general laws sought by human geographers could be found in the physical sciences. Geography was therefore the study of how the physical environment caused human activities.
Expansion diffusion The spread of a feature or trend among people from one area to another in a snowballing process.
Formal region (or uniform or homogeneous region) An area in which everyone shares in one or more distinctive characteristics.
Functional (or nodal) region An area organized around a node or focal point.
Geographic Information Science (GIScience) The development and analysis of data about Earth acquired through satellite and other electrionic information technologies.
Geographic Information System (GIS) A computer system that stores, organizes, analyzes, and displays geographic data. 
Geotagging Identification and storage of information by its precise latitude and longitude.
Global Positioning System (GPS) A system that determines the precise position of something on Earth through a series of satellites, tracking stations, and receivers.
Globalization Actions or processes that involve the entire world and result in making something worldwide in scope.
Greenwich Mean Time The time in that time zone encompassing the prime meridian, or 0° longitude.
Hearth The region from which innovative ideas originate.
Hierarchical diffusion The spread of a feature or trend from one key person or node of authority or power to other persons or places.
International Date Line An arc that for the most part follows 180° Longitude.
Latitude The numbering system used to indicate the location of parallels drawn on a globe and measuring distance north and south of the equator (0°).
Location The position of anything on Earth's surface.
Longitude The numbering system used to indicate the location of meridians drawn on a globe and measuring distance east and west of the prime meridian (0°).
Map A two-dimensional, or flat, representation of Earth's surface or a portion of it.
Map Scale The relationship between the size of an object on a map and the size of the actual feature on Earth's surface.
Mashup A map that overlays data from one source on top of a map provided by a mapping service.
Mental map An internal representation of a portion of Earth's surface based on what an individual knows about a place, containing personal impressions of what is in a place and where places are located.
Meridian An arc drawn on a map between the North and South poles.
Network A chain of communication that connects places.
Parallel A circle drawn around the globe parallel to the equator and at right angles to the meridians.
Pattern The geometric or regular arrangement of something in a study area.
Place A specific point on Earth distinguished by a particular character.
Polder Land created by the Dutch by draining water from an area.
Possibilism The theory that the physical environment may set limits on human actions, but people have the ability to adjust to the physical environment and choose a course of action from many alternatives.
Prime meridian The meridian, designated as 0° longitude, which passes through the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, England.
Projection The system used to transfer locations from Earth's surface to a flat map.
Region An area distinguished by a unique combination of trends or features.
Relocation diffusion The spread of a feature or trend through bodily movement of people from one place to another.
Remote sensing The acquisition of data about Earth's surface from a satellite orbiting the planet or other long-distance methods.
Scale The relationship between the portion of Earth being studied and Earth as a whole.
Site The physical character of a place.
Situation The location of a place relative to other places.
Space The physical gap or interval between two objects.
Space-time compression The reduction in the time it takes to diffuse something to a distant place, as a result of improved communications and transportation systems.
Stimulus diffusion The spread of an underlying principle, even though a specific characteristic is rejected.
Toponym The name given to a portion of Earth's surface.
Transnational corporation A company that conducts research, operates factories, and sells products in many countries, not just where its headquarters or shareholders are located.
Vernacular region (or perceptual region) An area that people believe to exist as part of their cultural identity.