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Chapter 1: Basic Concepts
The Cultural Landscape:
An Introduction to Human Geography
© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
Taking Notes
• In your notebook, you will take notes from the
PowerPoint and from your readings in each chapter.
The PowerPoint notes go on the left hand side of each
page, and your reading notes will go on the right hand
side of each page. The PPT notes and your reading
notes about the same topic/concept should align with
each other on the page. Any unknown vocabulary
and its definition will go at the bottom of the page.
• (This is kind of Cornell Note Taking—but kind of not).
• If you have any questions, email me. I will get back to
you as quickly as I can. If you do not hear from me
within two days, send me a reminder.
• [email protected]
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Thorough Reading
• Have you ever read something where you
are ten pages into it and have no idea
what you have just read? I know I have,
and it is so frustrating because I just had
to start over. We do not want to do that
here (or anywhere as far as that is
concerned) because it is a waste of our
time. I don’t know about you, but I would
rather be doing something else than
reading the same thing over, and over,
and over again.
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Thorough Reading--Continued
• So the way you get it done the first time is by
having a strategy—or in this case, several
strategies. The following strategies have
been used by many of us over the years, but
Salisbury University in Maryland put them
together in a nice checklist that you will find
along with explanations at the following link
http://www.salisbury.edu/counseling/new/7_cr
itical_reading_strategies.html
© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
Thorough Reading
• Or—a summary is on the next few pages
7 CRITICAL READING STRATEGIES
• 1. Previewing: Learning about a text before really reading it.
A. How it is organized ? B. What you can learn from the head notes or
other introductory material? C. Skim to get an overview of the content
and organization D. Identify the rhetorical situation.
•
2. Contextualizing: Placing a text in its historical, biographical, and
cultural contexts.
When you read a text, you read it through the lens of your own
experience. Your understanding of the words on the page and their
significance is informed by what you have come to know and value
from living in a particular time and place. This will not figure so much in
Human Geography because much of our material is current.
© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
Thorough Reading
•
•
3. Questioning to understand and remember: Asking questions
about the content. (History and Science books are great for turning the
titles of each section into a question. Then you can answer the
question as you read, and you won’t be wasting your time). Especially
in difficult academic readings, you will understand the material better
and remember it longer if you write a question for every paragraph or
brief section. Make sure you answer it in your own words.
4. Reflecting on challenges to your beliefs and values: Examining
your personal responses.
The reading that you do for this class might challenge your attitudes,
your unconsciously held beliefs, or your positions on current issues. As
you read a text for the first time, mark an X in the margin at each point
where you feel a personal challenge to your attitudes, beliefs, or status.
Make a brief note in your notes about what you feel or about what in
the text created the challenge. Now look again at the places you
marked in the text where you felt personally challenged. What
patterns do you see?
© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
Thorough Reading
• *5. Outlining and summarizing: Identifying the main ideas and
restating them in your own words.
Outlining and summarizing are especially helpful strategies for
understanding the content and structure of a reading selection.
The main ideas form the backbone, the strand that holds the
various parts and pieces of the text together. If you take good
notes as you read, you should not have to reread the text; you
will be able to study from your notes.
-Summarizing begins with outlining, but instead of merely listing
the main ideas, a summary recomposes them to form a new
text. Whereas outlining depends on a close analysis of each
paragraph, summarizing also requires creative synthesis.
Putting ideas together again -- in your own words and in a
condensed form -- shows how reading critically can lead to
deeper understanding of any text.
© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
Thorough Reading
• 6. Evaluating an argument: Testing the logic of a
text as well as its credibility and emotional impact.
(We will not have to deal with this too much—but you
may find some writer bias; it is difficult to find a
written manuscript without some bias).
• 7. Comparing and contrasting related
readings: Exploring likenesses and differences
between texts to understand them better. You will
find as we read ongoing chapters in the book how
they much of what we read will relate back to a
previous chapter. So do not skip a chapter or you
may find yourself struggling later on.
© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
Thorough Reading
•
•
•
As you open your book, do not skip those sections in the front that tell
you about your book. The entire format and logic behind that format is
explained. This will make finding information much easier on you in the
long run. So look over that table of context to see the types of things
which are covered in each chapter; notice that each chapter begins and
ends with a case study, has four sections referred to as key issues,
vocabulary referred to as key terms, and a higher thinking skills section
“Thinking Geographically”. The book, furthermore, has a map
appendix, key terms section, and an index (do you remember how to
use one?).
We also have access to an online textbook and study site, which is
more current than our textbook and will be used often.
Internet access will make this class much easier on you; however, if
you do not have it, plan a couple of days a week to arrive early and
stay late to use a computer in my room or visit the public library.
© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
Defining Geography
• Your notes should begin with the
introduction even before Key Issue
1.
• Word coined by Eratosthenes
– Geo = Earth
– Graphia = writing
• Geography thus means “earth writing”
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Contemporary Geography
• Geographers ask where and why
– Location and distribution are important
terms
• Geographers are concerned with the
tension between globalization and local
diversity
• A division: physical geography and
human geography
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Geography’s Vocabulary
•
•
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•
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Place
Region
Scale
Space
Connections
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Maps
• Two purposes
– As reference tools
• To find locations, to find one’s way
– As communications tools
• To show the distribution of human and physical
features
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Early Map Making
Figure 1-2
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Maps: Scale
• Types of map scale
– Ratio or fraction
– Written
– Graphic
• Projection
– Distortion
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Shape
Distance
Relative size
Direction
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Figure 1-4
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U.S. Land Ordinance of 1785
• Township and range system
– Township = 6 sq. miles on each side
• North–south lines = principal meridians
• East–west lines = base lines
– Range
– Sections
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Township and Range System
Figure 1-5
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Contemporary Tools
• Geographic
Information Science
(GIScience)
– Global Positioning
Systems (GPS)
– Remote sensing
– Geographic
information systems
(GIS)
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Figure 1-7
A Mash-up
Figure 1-8
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Place: Unique Location of a Feature
• Location
– Place names
• Toponym
– Site
– Situation
– Mathematical location
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Place: Mathematical Location
• Location of any place can be described
precisely by meridians and parallels
– Meridians (lines of longitude)
• Prime meridian
– Parallels (lines of latitude)
• The equator
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The Cultural Landscape
• A unique combination of social
relationships and physical processes
• Each region = a distinctive landscape
• People = the most important agents of
change to Earth’s surface
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Types of Regions
• Formal (uniform) regions
– Example: Montana
• Functional (nodal) regions
– Example: the circulation area of a
newspaper
• Vernacular (cultural) regions
– Example: the American South
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Culture
• Origin from the Latin cultus, meaning “to
care for”
• Two aspects:
– What people care about
• Beliefs, values, and customs
– What people take care of
• Earning a living; obtaining food, clothing, and
shelter
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Cultural Ecology
• The geographic study of human–
environment relationships
• Two perspectives:
– Environmental determinism
– Possibilism
• Modern geographers generally reject
environmental determinism in favor of
possibilism
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Physical Processes
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Climate
Vegetation
Soil
Landforms
– These four processes are important for
understanding human activities
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Modifying the Environment
• Examples
– The Netherlands
• Polders
– The Florida Everglades
Figure 1-21
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Scale
• Globalization
– Economic globalization
• Transnational corporations
– Cultural globalization
• A global culture?
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Space: Distribution of Features
• Distribution—three features
– Density
• Arithmetic
• Physiological
• Agricultural
– Concentration
– Pattern
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Space–Time Compression
Figure 1-29
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Spatial Interaction
• Transportation networks
• Electronic communications and
the “death” of geography?
• Distance decay
Figure 1-30
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Diffusion
• The process by which a characteristic
spreads across space and over time
• Hearth = source area for innovations
• Two types of diffusion
– Relocation
– Expansion
• Three types: hierarchical, contagious, stimulus
© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.
Relocation Diffusion: Example
Figure 1-31
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The End.
Up next: Population
© 2011 Pearson Education, Inc.