Download World Regional Geography Standards

World Regional Geography
One Semester Course – Ninth Grade
Students in grade nine are introduced to the study of geography and to the many tools
employed by a geographer in the study of the earth and its peoples. They consider the
regional mosaic of the world through a series of studies moving from Canada and the
United States through Mexico and Latin America and on to Western Europe. Students
then explore Russia and its former satellites as well as Southwest Asia and North
Africa. They then turn their attention to sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.
9.1
Students use maps and other geographic representations, tools, and
technologies to acquire, process, and report information from a spatial
perspective. (location)
1. Produce and interpret maps and other graphic representations to solve
geographic problems.
2. Use maps and other geographic representations to analyze world events
and suggest solutions to world problems.
3. Recognize the mathematical principles guiding map projections such as
grid system, latitude, longitude, hemispheres, etc.
4. Evaluate the applications of geographic tools and supporting technologies
to serve particular purposes such as satellites (Landsat and
Geostationary Operational Environment Satellite (GOES), Geographic
Information Systems (GIS), Global Positioning System (GPS), etc.)
5. Develop mental maps of the world to organize and analyze information
about people, places, and environments in a spatial context.
6. Use mental maps of physical and human features of the world to
answer complex geographic questions.
9.2
Students study the physical and human characteristics of places.
(place)
1. Understand the meaning and significance of place.
2. Examine the relationships between humans and the physical environment
and how they lead to the formation of places and to a sense of personal
and community identity.
3. Explain place from a variety of points of view.
4. Recognize that multiple criteria can be used to define a region.
5. Compare the role that culture plays in incidents of cooperation and
conflict in the present-day world.
6. Describe the increasing economic interdependence of the world’s
countries.
7. Classify the characteristics of settlements in developing or developed
countries.
9.3
Students explore the characteristics, distribution, and migration of
human populations on earth’s surface. (movement)
1. Examine trends in world population numbers and patterns.
2. Understand the impact of human migration on physical and human
systems.
3. Analyze population issues and propose policies to address such issues.
4. Explain the economic, political, and social factors that contribute to
human migration.
5. Knows the characteristics, distribution, and complexity of earth’s
cultural mosaics.
6. Identify and analyze the historical movement patterns of people and
goods and their relationships to economic activity.
7. Explain the spatial processes of cultural convergence and divergence.
9.4
Students study how human actions modify the physical environment.
(human-environment interaction)
1. Evaluate the ways in which technology has expanded the human capability
to modify the physical environment.
2. Explain the global impacts of human changes in the physical environment.
3. Develop possible solutions to scenarios of environmental change induced
by human modification of the physical environment.
4. Analyze examples of changes in the physical environment that have
reduced the capacity of the environment to support human activity.
5. Explain the ways in which individuals and societies hold varying
perceptions of natural hazards in different environments and have
different ways of reacting to them.
6. Know and understand how the spatial distribution of resources that
affect patterns of human settlement.
7. Explain the relationship between resources and the exploration,
colonization, and settlement of different regions of the world.
9.5
Students recognize that people create regions to interpret the earth’s
complexity. (region)
1. Understand that multiple criteria can be used to define a region.
2. List and explain the changing criteria that can be used to define a
region.
3. Describe the types and organization of regional systems.
4. Interpret the connections within and among the parts of a regional
system.
5. Use regions to analyze geographic issues and answer geographic
questions.