Unit 1 Introduction
1. Outline a brief overview of the history of geography as a discipline ,and include important thinkers In the field.
2. Use latitude and longitude to locate places on maps and globes, and to describe locations too people so that they can find places on maps and globes.
3. Create their own maps with the conscious use of scale, orientation, and projection, and be able to explain why they used the particular scale, orientation, and projection that they incorporated into their maps.
4. Define a “region,” and use GIS to pinpoint and study particular global regions for their geographical features, resources, and location.
5. Analyze a particular global event (e.g. earthquake in Japan ;violence in Syria), explaining its causes and effects according to a. Scale b. Location c. Place d. Global connections
6. Create and elaborate upon political, physical and thematic maps to explain one particular global event.
Unit 2 Population
1. Define“population density ”and describe variousl locations ’population densities in different areas around the globe, offering reasons for why certain densities exist in certain locations. (
2. Define different categories of human population, explain why we categorize populations according to categories, and create and analyze population pyramids.
3. Describe the ways in which culture, religion, gender equality, politics, and economics all affect population growth.
4. Explain, in their own words, the contemporary theories about population growth and decline. (e.g. Demographic Transition Model)
5. Describe the causes and effects of the migration of peoples, and define the categories of migrating peoples according to the reasons for human movement.
6. Identify various trends in human movement today, and predict the effects of government policies and regional differences (geographic, cultural) on human movement.
7. Describe the role played by geography, climate, and topography in human migration, and use them to assess the validity of prevailing theories on population growth and decline.
Unit 3 Culture Patterns and Processes
1. Define and give specific examples of various concepts which help to frame the study of cultural processes.
2. Evaluate the extent to which prevailing concepts help us to understand and explain cultural processes
3. Identify the geographic and cultural features that allow us to define specific world “regions,” and describe the physical, economic, and cultural characteristics of specific world regions.
4. Explain how location affects cultural processes and practices—in the areas of language, ethnicity, gender, religion and social life.
5. Explain how culture creates symbols and meaning out of the geographic landscape, accounting for history, heritage, and values of cultural groups.
6. Identify specific symbolic landscapes and explain how and why certain cultural processes and practices are connected to them.
Unit 4 Power and Politics
1. Describe the ways in which different nations draw or label maps to protect or advance their interests.
2. Describe the effects of national boundaries on the lives of people in boundary regions—in terms of trade, security, and livelihood.
3. List and describe the geographical reasons why nations and people claim and construct territorial boundaries—explaining the difference between “state” and “nation.”
4. Explain how physical geography affects the creation of, and territory claimed by, nation-states and city-states.
5. Describe the ways in which the configuration of territories or “zones” can enhance or diminish political power—at both the local level and the supra-state level. Define “geographical sovereignty” with specific examples of people claiming, losing, or gaining it.
6. Explain the differences between Colonialism, Expansionism, and Globalization, describing the details of their economic and environmental components with the use of specific examples.
7. Define democratization and describe its role in ethnic geography, political cooperation or unification, and political devolution. Explain specific examples of each.
Unit 5 Food and Agriculture
1. Identify and mark on maps the major agricultural producing regions of the world
2. Analyze and categorize the major historical agricultural revolutions.
3. Explain what the geographical and human factors are that affect the production of certain agricultural products in certain regions.
4. Explain how the production of food products determines where and how people live.
5. Explain how different types of agricultural production affect the local and global environments—using specific examples, and differentiating between types of commercial and subsistence agriculture.
6. Compare the quality of life of various human communities based on where they live in relation to food production.
Unit 6 Geography and Economic Development
1. Define and differentiate between different types of economic resources.
2.Describe and explain the effects of geographic location on all types of economic resources.
3. List and describe the key cultural, historical, and political factors that assist industrialization.
4. Describe the role of technology in industrialization, and characterize the effects it has on the environment.
5. Cite specific examples of Comparative Advantage and explain their origins and their effects on countries seeking to industrialize or promote economic development.
6. Cite specific examples of regions or countries experiencing beneficial trading relationships. Describe the key factors allowing those relationships to be constructive and/or beneficial.
7. Describe and characterize the process of economic globalization. What are the constructive outcomes? What are the destructive outcomes?
Unit 7 Urban Geography
1. Describe the geographic features that accommodate and promote the development of dense urban settlements.
2. List and describe the processes of economic need and development that contribute to the formation of cities—and the formation of cities in particular locations.
3. Compare and contrast different boundary definitions of urban areas.
4. Assess whether or not a particular set of economic and geographic factors will contribute to connections of transportation and exchange between different cities.
5. Describe the fundamental features of urban living and assess its benefits and costs vs. life in other settings.
6. Explain why certain populations choose to live in particular parts of urban environments and why certain parts of urban environments are devoted to specific uses.
7. Compare and contrast daily life and major trends of various world cities using politics, culture, and economics as points of comparison and analyzing various challenges faced in urban and surrounding areas because of rapid growth.
8. Apply urban models (Hoyt, Burgess, Harris/Ullman) to contemporary world cities.