1. Studying Geography

2. Themes and Essential Elements

3. What is Geography?
• Geography is the study of everything on Earth from
rocks and rainfall to people and places
• Geographers study how natural environment
influences people, how people’s activities affect
Earth, and how the world is changing
• Geographers look at many different things including
cities, cultures, plants, and resources
• Geographers use spatial perspective to study the
world
• Spatial perspective is looking for patterns in where
things are located on Earth and how they are
arranged

4. • Geographers try to explain these patterns
• Geographers look at landscapes and how they
shape the world
• Landscapes include physical, human, and cultural
features
• Geography has two main branches: Human
Geography and Physical Geography
• Human geography looks at the distribution and
characteristics of the world’s people
• H.G. studies where people live, work and their ways
of life, how people make and trade things they need
to survive

5. • Physical geography focuses on Earth’s natural
environments
• Includes Earth’s landforms, water features,
atmosphere, animals, plants, soils, and the
processes that affect them
• The interaction between people links human &
physical geography together

6. Human Physical
Geography Geography
• Studies distribution Both • Focuses on Earth’s
and characteristics natural environments,
of the world’s people including landforms,
(where people live • Studies how water features, plants,
and what they do) people interact animals, and other
with their physical features
• Examines how environments
people make and • Studies the processes
trade things that they that shape physical
need to survive environments

7. Who Uses Geography?
• We use geography everyday
• Most jobs require an understanding of geography
Subfields of Geography
• Cartography-the study of making maps and
mapmaking
• Maps help geographers study location
• Cartographers work for companies that publish
maps, atlases, newspapers, magazines, and books
as well as city planning agencies and other areas of
government

8. • Meteorology-the study of weather
• Meteorologists forecast how the weather will
develop so people know what to expect
Geographers at Work
• Many geographers work for governmental agencies
• One of the largest employers of cartographers in
the U.S. is the United States Geological Survey
(USGS)
• USGS produces detailed maps of the whole country
• Geographers decide where to place new stores and
plan shipping and trucking routes as well as identify
new markets

9. AND THE MOST IMPORTANT!!!!!!!
• Schools hire geography teachers
• Geographic knowledge is needed for good
citizenship
How Do We Study Geography?
• The idea of regions are an important concept in
geography
• Regions have one or more common features that
make them different from surrounding areas
• Regions are defined by their physical and human
features
• Physical features include kinds of climate, river
systems, soils, and vegetation you find there

10. • Human features include languages, religions, and
trade networks of an area
• Sometimes boundaries are clear like the U.S.
political boundaries while others are not as clear
• Ex. The Corn Belt is a farming region in the
Midwestern U.S. but it does not have clearly set
boundaries
• Regions can be any size. Countries, deserts and
mountain ranges are large regions. Suburbs and
neighborhoods are small regions

11. Types of Regions
• Formal Region – has one or more common features
that make it different from surrounding areas
• Formal regions can be based on
landforms, population, income
levels, crops, temperature, or rainfall
• EX. Corn Belt. Rust Belt. Sun Belt. Piedmont. Sahel.
Rocky Mountains

15. • Functional Region – made up of different places
that are linked together and function as a unit
• Ex. City transit system
• Many functional regions are organized around a
central point & surrounding areas are linked to this
point
• Ex. Shopping malls are centers to link surrounding
neighborhoods. Cities connect to suburbs and
industry which all function together
• Perceptual Region – regions that reflect human
feelings and attitudes
• Ex. “back home”, Midwest, Dixie in the South
• These areas have their own special features that
make them different from anywhere else

19. The Five Themes and Six Essential Elements
• The study of geography has long been organized
according to five important themes
• Location-deals with exact or relative spot on Earth
• An exact location on Earth is absolute location
• Relative location is its position on Earth relative to other
locations
• Place-includes physical & human features of a
location

20. • Human-Environmental Interaction-covers ways
people and environments interrelate with and
affect each other
• Movement-involves how people and things change
locations and the effects of these changes
• Region-organizes Earth into geographic areas with
one or more shared characteristics

21. • By the early 1990s 18 Geography Standards were
created and grouped into 6 Essential Elements:
-The World in Spatial Terms
-Places and Regions
-Physical Systems
-Human Systems
-Environment and Society
-The Uses of Geography

22. Using the Geographer’s Tools

23. Organizing the Globe
• Globes are scale models of Earth
• Globes show grids
• Grids are made by lines of latitude and longitude

24. • Lines of latitude measure distance north and south
of the equator
• Lines of latitude are called parallels
• Lines of longitude measure distance east and west
of the prime meridian
• Lines of longitude are called meridians

25. • Parallels and meridians measure distances in
degrees
• Degrees are further divided into minutes with there
being 60 minutes in each degree
Hemispheres, Continents, and Oceans
• Geographers use grids to utilize how we look at the
world
• The equator divides the globe into Northern and
Southern hemispheres while the prime meridian
and 180 degree meridian divides it into Eastern and
Western hemispheres

27. • The planet’s land surfaces are divided into seven
continents
• Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia, Europe, North
America, and South America
• Landmasses surrounded by water are called islands
• Greenland is the world’s largest island
• Earth’s water surfaces are organized into separate
areas: oceans, seas, gulfs, lakes, rivers, etc.
• The four oceans are Pacific (largest), Atlantic,
Indian, and Arctic (smallest)
• Seas are connected to oceans while lakes are
inland, Caspian Sea is world’s largest lake

28. Making Maps
• Maps are flat representations of all or part of
Earth’s surface
• A collection of maps in a book is called an atlas
• Mapmakers have different ways of presenting our
round Earth on flat maps called map projections
Map Projections
• Maps with cylindrical projections are designed as if
a cylinder has been wrapped around the globe
• A Mercator map is a cylindrical projection that
shows true direction and shape
• Landmasses at high altitudes or near the poles are
exaggerated/distorted in size in a Mercator map

29. • Conic projections are designed as if a cone has been
placed over the globe
• Conic projections are most accurate along the lines
of latitude where it touches the globe
• Flat-plane maps are those that appear to touch the
globe at one point, such as the North Pole or South
Pole
• Flat-plane projection is useful for showing true
direction for airplane pilots and ship navigators and
shows true area sizes, but it distorts shapes

34. Great Circle Route
• Drawing a straight line on a flat map will not show
the shortest route between two places
• Maps represent a round world on a flat plane
• The shortest route between any two places on the
planet is called a great-circle route
• Airline pilots and ship captains use great-circle
routes to help them navigate

36. Understanding Map Elements
• Study of geography includes looking at places at
different scales
• Almost all maps have common elements such as
distance scales, directional indicator, and a key
Distance Scales
• Distance scale helps us determine real distance
between points on a map
Directional Indicators
• Most maps will include a compass rose,
which has arrows that point to all 4
principal directions

37. Legends
• Legends are keys to identify symbols on a map and
what they represent

38. Other Elements
• Maps may compare physical size of an area
• Contiguous is connecting
• Ex. Hawaii and Alaska are not part of the contiguous
U.S. because they do not connect with the other 48
states
• An insert map is used to focus in on a small part of a
larger map

39. Using Special Purpose Maps
• Geographers use maps that focus on certain
information about places and regions
• Political maps show borders, cities, countries, states
and other political features
• Physical maps show natural features like mountains,
rivers, and other bodies of water
Climate and Precipitation Maps
• Climate maps use color to show various climate
regions of the world
• Precipitation maps are paired with climate maps
which show the average amount of precipitation
that a region gets each year

42. Population and Economic Maps
• Population maps give you a snapshot of the
distribution of people in a region
• Generally these maps deal with population density
• Economic maps show a region’s important natural
resources and the ways in which land is used

46. Elevation Profiles and Topographic Maps
• Elevation profile shows a side view of a place or
area
• The purpose of some maps is to show the
topography of the land
• Special kinds of topography maps are called contour
map
• Contour maps connects points of equal elevation
above or below sea level

48. Climate Graphs and Population Pyramids
• Two common diagrams that show important
geographic characteristics: climate graphs and
population pyramids
• Climate graphs show the average temperatures and
precipitation in a place
• Population pyramids show the percentage of males
and females by age group in a country’s population

49. Munfordville