Welcome to the Wonderful World of Geography Schedule

Welcome to the Wonderful World of Geography Schedule

• Enrichment activities are included and left up to the instructor to determine how to apply them to your own course. (These will be designated by the exclamation bullet, and will be found in the “Notes” section.)

Week 1 – Schedule

• These particular countries in Africa are undergoing terrible civil war. Go on the internet and look up the problems on the Sudan. What is the role of history in this problem? You may find this site interesting: http://www.lostboyschicago.com/.

• These particular countries in Africa are undergoing terrible civil war. Go on the internet and look up the genocide that occurred in Uganda and Rwanda.

• Democratic Republic of the Congo was previously known as Zaire, and has just had “successful elections” in 2007 seen here: http://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/cg.html

• What is the difference between North Ireland and Ireland? What do we call these islands? What exactly is the Kingdom of Great Britain?

• The North Atlantic Drift brings warm water from the equator all the way to the western coasts of Norway, keeping the ports open year round. Russia has coveted Norway for this reason. Norway, Sweden and Finland make up what?

• Check out Earth’s Active Volcanoes: http://www.geo.mtu.edu/volcanoes/world.html

• Plate tectonics: http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/geology/tecmech.html (article) http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/tryit/tectonics/ (activity)

• Please note Kaliningrad Oblast (found between Lithuania and Poland). This is a geographically separated “city” belonging to Russia (its one good “winter-time” port).

• Care to find out what happened due to the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake? What about identifying potential “danger zones” that could be caused by earthquakes or volcanoes?

• Spain and Portugal lie on the Iberian Peninsula separated from France by the Pyrenees Mountains. The Basque people live in these mountains and are trying to gain their independence from Spain. What can you tell us about these people and their culture?

• Let’s map the major mountain regions of the world. You need a blank world map, and your atlas. Discuss mountains as barriers to migration as well as weather, location of natural resources, etc.
• What caused “the year without a summer”?

• Please note that Sicily and Sardinia are part of Italy; however they are big enough to warrant learning. Corsica is part of France

• Feel free to look up Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Fuji and other stratovolcanoes. Let’s throw in some fumaroles to look at as well (i.e. Black Growler steam vents in WY).

• The Czech Republic and Slovakia make an interesting comparison between our industrial North and agricultural South here in the US (circa 1860s).

• These countries used to be part of Yugoslavia until the fall of the Soviet Union. Want to take a look at the dissolution of the former country and its ensuing civil war?

• You need a blank world map. Draw in deserts of the world. http://www.livingdesert.org/deserts/world_deserts.asp Once you see the common denominators of deserts it is easy to understand why they are where they are.
• Discuss responsibility in disposing of hazardous waste.
• Did you know that in Albania women were forced to have children who were then put in orphanages and fed with IVs? Because the needles were used over and over there is an extremely high incidence of AIDS among this young population. The ruling dictator thought by increasing the population he would have a larger population to work and fight for him.

• Silly Tidbit: While you always want more dessert (2 “s”s), you’d not be very keen on the desert (1 “s”).