Download Ch 1 Teacher Notes

World Cultures
Chapter 1
The Global Environment
Section 1
Exploring the World Around Us
Wherever people live, they have shaped the environment to suit their needs
World cultures is the study of the connections between people and their environment
Geography - the study of where people, places, and things are located and how they relate to
each other.
Five basic themes
Location
Place
Interaction between people and their environment
Movement
Region
Location – position on the Earth’s surface
Relative location – describing the position in relation to another place
Absolute location – using the lines of latitude and longitude as seen on a map or globe
Latitude – distance north or south of the Equator
Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere
Longitude – distance east or west of the Prime Meridian
Prime Meridian – imaginary line that runs through Greenwich England
Eastern Hemisphere and Western Hemisphere
Place – physical and human characteristics
Physical characteristics - landforms, climate, soil, animal life
Human characteristics – peoples’ ways of life – activities, transportation, religion,
language
Interaction between people and their environment
Wherever people live, they change the world around them
What we call progress has involved people changing their environment
Hidden cost – pollution
People must decide how to build their economies without harming the
environment
Adaptation –
People sometimes have to change due to the environment
Movement – of people, goods, and ideas – often occur together
Migration – people moving from place to place
Looking for food, a better way of life, war, natural disasters, involuntarily
Trade – movement of goods
Exports – goods sent to markets outside a country
Imports – goods brought into a country
Ideas spread – occurs with the movement of people and goods
Spread of religion
Modern communication and transportation has sped up the spread of ideas
Interdependence – dependence of countries on goods, resources, and knowledge from
other parts of the world
Region – unifying characteristics
Physical characteristics – landforms or climate
Rocky Mountains, rain forest
Cultural characteristics – religion, language
Muslin culture
Political characteristics
Economic characteristics – developed, developing
U. S. – Third World
Section 2
Understanding the Physical World
Geographers use globes and maps to represent the Earth
Globes are more accurate than maps
Maps because they are flat distort the Earth
Map projections – ways of showing the curved Earth on a flat surface
Mercator projection – shows direction, gives an accurate view of land areas near the
Equator distorts the size and shape of land near the North and South poles
Interrupted projection – correct size of and shapes of landmasses, cuts out parts of
oceans, impossible to measure distances accurately
Peters projection – correct areas of landmasses and oceans, distorts the shapes of
Africa and South America
Robinson projection – shows the correct sizes and shapes of most landmasses, fairly
accurate view of the sizes of oceans and the distances across land areas,
distorts especially along the edges
Special purpose maps
Political maps – show the borders that divide nations
Physical maps – show features such as mountains, lakes, rivers
Topography – the physical features of a place or region
Natural resource maps – shows the location of oil, coal, other important resources
Climate maps
Vegetation maps – Vegetation – plant life of a place or region
Maps are made from a particular point of view
Usually stress what is imported to the mapmaker’s culture
Major landforms
Mountains – high, steep, rugged land that rises above the surrounding land, varies in
elevation but are at least 2,000 feet high
elevation – height above sea level
generally have small populations
Hills – areas of raised land, lower and less steep than mountains
More settled than mountains, easier to farm
Plains – large areas of fairly level or gently rolling land, generally low elevation
If has fertile soil and enough rainfall it is a good area to raise crops
Plateaus – areas of high, flat or gently rolling land
Fertile soil and enough rainfall it is a good area to raise crops
Climate Zones
Physical characteristics of a region include climate
Climate – the average weather a place has over a period of 20 to 30 years
Location affects climate
Lands close to the Equator have tropical climates
Hot and humid
Lands further north and south of the Equator have temperate climates
Warm and cold seasons
Lands located near the North and South poles have arctic climates
Cold all year
Elevation affects climate
Highlands are cooler than lowlands because air cools as it rises
Section 3
The Meaning of Culture
Culture – all things that make up a people’s entire way of life
Elements of culture
Social organization
Customs and traditions
Language
Arts and literature
Religion
Forms of government
Economic systems
Social Organization
Organizing members into smaller groups
Family is the most important unit of social organization
Person with authority within a family varies from one culture to another
Family patterns
Nuclear family – wife, husband, and their children
Typical family pattern in industrialized societies
Extended family – several generations living in one household
May be grandparents, parents, children and sometimes aunts, uncles etc
This pattern is common in many societies
Social classes
Ranks people in order of status
Bases on money, occupation, education, ancestry, or any other
factor a culture values highly
In the past, a person born into a class, stayed in the class for life
Customs and Traditions
Rules of behavior
Minor rules of everyday behavior are enforced by social pressure
Rules concerning what is right and wrong are enforced more strictly
Often are part of a culture’s written laws
Language
Cornerstone of culture
All cultures have language, but not all cultures have forms of writing
Language reflects a culture’s identity
Many societies have a large number of people who speak different languages
Can cause problems if an official language is chosen
Giving up a language may be the first step in losing a culture
Arts and Literature
Teaches about cultural values
Religion
Supports the values that the people consider important
Monotheism – the worship of one god
Polytheism – the worship of more than one god
Major religions
Hinduism
Buddhism
Judaism
Christianity
Islam
Religious differences are a troubling problem in many regions
Forms of Government
Formed to provide for common needs
Keeping order within society
Protecting the society from outside threats
Government refers to
The people who hold power in a society
The society’s laws and political institutions
National governments include thousands of officials
Collect taxes, enforces laws, administer justice
Types of government
Democracy – people have supreme power, the government may act on by and
with consent of the people
U.S. is a democracy with a republican form of government
Republic – the people choose the leaders who represent them
Dictatorship – the ruler or group holds power through force
Economic Systems
How people use limited resources to satisfy their wants and needs.
Answer 3 questions
-what goods and services should we produce
-how should we produce them
-for whom to produce them
Traditional economy
-people produce more of what they need to survive
Hunting and gathering, farming, herding cattle
-if more goods are produced, they are traded for other goods
Market economy
-businesses and industries produce and sell good for money
-people earn money by working for others or for themselves
Command economy
-government controls all aspects of production
-people have little economic power
Mixed economy
-most nations
-individuals and government each make some decisions
-features of the market and command economy
Section 4
How Cultures Change
Causes of Cultural Change
Technology
Changing environment
New ideas
Technology – skills and tools a people use
Examples – learning to use stones as tools
Inventions like automobiles
Changed were people lived
Spurred the growth of industries
Changing environment
People adapt to changes in their environment
New ideas
Altering of actions because of new ideas
Recycling and conservation
Diffusion – the movement of customs or ideas from one place to another
Wherever people travel they exchange goods, skills, ideas, and technology
Tradition and Change
In the past culture changed slowly
New technology has rapidly increased change
Contact among different cultures have increased
Benefits of improved communication and transportation
Medical care, increased trade
Down side of new technology
Rapid changes threaten the foundations of many cultures
Subculture – a group of people within a society who share certain beliefs, values,
and customs
Understanding Other Cultures
Most people prefer their own culture
Our customs feel so natural we think they are the way things should be
Ethnocentrism – judge other cultures by the standards of their own culture
A form of ethnocentrism is racism
Racism – the belief that one racial group is naturally superior to another
Racism most often results when groups of people compete for food, land,
money, and social power. The group that wins the struggle uses racist
ideas as an excuse for domination others