Readings for Workshop 2
The following material comes from Chapter 4 of
Geography for Life. You may read it here or in its complete
form in your text. For additional readings, go to Resources.
The National Geography Standards for Workshop
2
The National Geography Standards highlighted in
this workshop include Standards 4, 7, 9, and 15. As you read,
be thinking about how the standards apply in lessons you may have
taught.
Standard
4: The Physical and Human Characteristics of Places
People's lives
are grounded in particular places. We come from a place, we live
in a place, and we preserve and exhibit fierce pride over places.
Our sense of self is intimately entwined with that of place. Who
we are is often inseparable from where we are. Places are human
creations and the geographically informed person must understand
the genesis, evolution, and meaning of places.
Places are
parts of Earth's space, large or small, that have been endowed
with meaning by humans. They include continents, islands, countries,
regions, states, cities, neighborhoods, villages, rural areas,
and uninhabited areas. They usually have names and boundaries.
Each place possesses a distinctive set of tangible and intangible
characteristics that helps to distinguish it from other places.
Places are characterized by their physical and human properties.
Their physical characteristics include climate, landforms, soils,
hydrology, vegetation, and animal life. Their human characteristics
include language, religion, political systems, economic systems,
population distribution, and quality of life.
Places change
over time as both physical and human processes operate to modify
Earth's surface. Few places remain unchanged for long and these
changes have a wide range of consequences. As knowledge, ideologies,
values, resources, and technologies change, people make place-altering
decisions about how to use land, how to organize society, and
ways in which to relate (such as economically or politically)
to nearby and distant places. Out of these processes emerge new
places, with existing places being reorganized and expanded, other
places declining, and some places disappearing. Places change
in size and complexity and in economic, political, and cultural
importance as networks of relationships between places are altered
through population expansion, the rise and fall of empires, changes
in climate and other physical systems, and changes in transportation
and communication technologies. A place can be dramatically altered
by events both near and far.
Knowing how
and why places change enables people to understand the need for
knowledgeable and collaborative decision-making about where to
locate schools, factories, and other things and how to make wise
use of features of the physical environment such as soil, air,
water, and vegetation. Knowing the physical and human characteristics
of their own places influences how people think about who they
are, because their identity is inextricably bound up with their
place in life and the world. Personal identity, community identity,
and national identity are rooted in place and attachment to place.
Knowing about other places influences how people understand other
peoples, cultures, and regions of the world. Knowledge of places
at all scales, local to global, is incorporated into people's
mental maps of the world.
Students need
an understanding of why places are the way they are, because it
can enrich their own sense of identity with a particular place
and enable them to comprehend and appreciate both the similarities
and differences of places around their own community, state, country,
and planet.
Standard
7: The Physical Processes that Shape the Patterns of Earth's Surface.
Physical processes
create, maintain, and modify Earth's physical features and environments.
Because the physical environment is the essential background for
all human activity on Earth, the geographically informed person
must understand the processes that produce those features.
Physical processes
can be grouped into four categories: those operating in the atmosphere
(i.e., climate and meteorology), those operating in the lithosphere
(e.g., plate tectonics, erosion, and soil formation), those operating
in the hydrosphere (e.g., the circulation of the oceans and the
hydrologic cycle), and those operating in the biosphere (e.g.,
plant and animal communities and ecosystems).
By understanding
the interaction within and between these categories of physical
processes, the geographically informed person can pose and answer
certain fundamental questions: What does the surface of Earth
look like? How have it s features been formed? What is the nature
of these features and how do they interact? How and why are they
changing? What are the spatially distinct combinations of environmental
features? How are these environmental features related to past,
present, and prospective human uses of Earth? The answers to these
questions lead to an understanding of how Earth serves as the
home of all plants and animals, including humans.
Processes
shape and maintain the physical environment. Therefore it is vital
that students appreciate the complex relationships between processes
and resultant features, and how these relationships give rise
to patterns of spatial organization. For example, in a region
such as southern California, the physical landscape is constantly
reshaped by a complex set of interacting physical processes: earthquakes,
coastal erosion, land subsidence owing to subsurface oil and water
extraction, flash floods and landslides caused by heavy rainfall
in the spring, and drought and the loss of chaparral vegetation
from fire in the dry summer weeks. In turn, these processes show
chains of interaction: the chaparral vegetation is the biosphere's
response to the climate and soil. Given the expected variations
in rainfall in this Mediterranean climate regime, the chaparral
becomes dormant and is prone to fire; however, clearance of the
chaparral vegetation, especially in the canyons of steep hills,
exposes the surface to flash flooding and soil erosion.
Five basic
ideas help to explain the interactions and effects of physical
processes. These are known as system, boundary, force, state of
equilibrium, and threshold. A system is a collection of elements
that are mutually connected and therefore influence one another
to form a unified whole (e.g., the hydrologic cycle). Each system
has boundaries, either real or arbitrary, within which it operates.
Some forces, such as gravity and weather, activate and drive processes;
other forces, such as friction, resist change and act to maintain
the status quo. Systems exist in different states. When a system
is in equilibrium, driving forces such as gravity and resisting
forces such as friction are in balance. However, when a threshold
- the point at which change may occur - is reached adjustment
takes place. For example, an avalanche occurs when gravity, acting
on deep layers of snow, overcomes the friction that was holding
the snow mass in place (i.e., a state of equilibrium gives way
when a threshold is reached). After the avalanche a new state
of equilibrium is established.
It is essential
that students understand the physical processes that act upon
Earth and that such processes affect the choices made by people
in different regions of the United States. Knowledge of these
processes is required for dealing with such commonplace issues
as: evaluating locations of relative safety in an earthquake-prone
region; purchasing a home in a floodplain; coping with the threat
of sinkholes and subsidence in a landscape underlain by limestone
deposits; building a house in an area that has shrink-swell clay
soils.
It is also
essential that students learn to make intelligent predictions
about future events and evaluate the short- and long-term effects
of physical events on places and regions. Evaluating reports of
world climate change requires knowing the factors that affect
climate and weather in general and how the natural environment
functions in particular regions. Climate and weather affect more
than just personal decision-making on a daily basis. They are
major factors in understanding world economic conditions over
longer periods. Many important natural resources are formed by
physical processes that occur in relatively few places on Earth.
Understanding physical processes and the patterns of resources
they produce is vital to understanding not only the physical geography
of Earth's surface but also the strategic relationships between
nations and world trade patterns.
Understanding
physical processes enables the geographically informed person
to link the personal with the societal, the short term with the
long term, and the local with the global dimensions of Earth.
Standard
9: The characteristics, distribution, and migration of human populations
on Earth's surface.
Human population
has increased dramatically over the last few centuries. In 1830,
more than 900 million people inhabited Earth. As the twenty-first
century approached, Earth's population was nearly six billion.
At the same time, extraordinarily large and dense clusters of
people are growing: Tokyo has already reached a population in
excess of 25 million. The geographically informed person must
understand that the growth, distribution, and movements of people
on Earth's surface are the driving forces behind not only human
events - social, cultural, political, and economic - but also
certain physical events - large-scale flooding, resource depletion,
and ecological breakdown.
Students need
to develop an understanding of the interaction of the human and
environmental factors that help to explain the characteristics
of human populations, as well as their distribution and movements.
The distribution and density of Earth's population reflect the
planet's topography, soils, vegetation, and climate types (ecosystems);
available resources; and level of economic development. Population
growth rates are influenced by such factors as education (especially
of women), religion, telecommunications, urbanization, and employment
opportunities. Mortality rates are influenced by the availability
of medical services, food, shelter, health services, and the overall
age and sex distribution of the population.
Another key
population characteristic is growth, which may be described in
terms of fertility and mortality, crude birth- and death rates,
natural increase and doubling time, and population structure (age
and sex distribution). These basic demographic concepts help bring
focus to the human factors that explain population distributions
and densities, growth patterns, and population projections. Population
pyramids, for example, indicate the differential effects of past
events, such as wars, disease, famine, improved sanitation, and
vaccination programs, on birth- and death rates and gender. An
analysis of specific age cohorts enables predictions to be made.
For example, a large proportion zero to 15 years old suggests
rapid population, which will soon require significant resources
to support the elderly. Both predictions could have significant
geographic implications for a community; for example, a young
population could create a need for more housing and schools, whereas
an older population could create a need for more retirement and
medical facilities. Such demographic analyses can be performed
at all scales.
Almost every
country is experiencing increased urbanization. Across Earth peasant
and pastoral life is giving way to the more economically promising
lure of life in cities, as people seeking better jobs or more
income move to areas where opportunities are better. The majority
of the world's people are moving toward a way of life that only
a minority of people experienced less than a century ago. Population
geographers predict that Tokyo, Sao Paulo, Bombay, Shanghai, Lagos,
and Mexico City will be the 21st century's massive population
centers. However, people in some developed countries are giving
up the economic advantages of city life for the ease and attractions
of suburbs and small towns, especially those with access to employment
in metropolitan areas.
Migration
is one of the most distinctive and visible characteristics of
human populations, and it leads to significant reshaping of population
distribution and character. It is a dynamic process that is constantly
changing Earth's landscapes and modifying its cultures. It takes
place at a variety of scales and in different contexts. At international
scales geographers track the flows of immigrants and emigrants.
At national scales they consider net regional balances of in-
and out-migrants or the flows from rural to urban areas, which
are a principal cause of urbanization. At a local scale they consider
the continuous mobility of college students, retirees, and tourists
or the changes of address that occur without necessarily resulting
in a job change or change in friendship patterns.
The context
of migration varies from voluntary and discretionary (the search
for a better place to live), to voluntary but unavoidable (the
search for a place to live), to involuntary and unavoidable (the
denial of the right to choose a place to live).
In the two
voluntary contexts, migration often results from the weighing
of factors at the point of origin and at potential destinations
against the costs (financial and emotional) of moving. "Pull"
factors may make another place seem more attractive and therefore
influence the decision to move. Other factors are unpleasant enough
to "push" the migrant out of the local setting and toward
another area. These factors reflect people's objective knowledge
of places and also their secondhand impressions. As a consequence,
many countries have experienced waves of people going from settled
areas to new lands in the interior (e.g., the westward movement
in the United States in the nineteenth century and the move from
the southeast coast to the interior of Brazil starting in the
1960s, when the new capital city of Brasilia was built).
Voluntary
and unavoidable migration occurs when much of a region's or country's
population is impelled into migration streams, such as the millions
of Irish who fled to the United States in the 1840s because of
the potato famine or the millions of Somalis, Sudanese, and Rwandans
who moved in the 1990s because of drought, famine, and civil war.
However, some migrations are forced and involuntary. Such was
the case with African Americans who were taken to North and South
America in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries
to work as slave laborers on sugar, cotton, and tobacco plantations.
Demographic
shifts rearrange patterns of population and create new human landscapes.
Natural increase, war, famine, and disease play decisive roles
in influencing why many people live where they do. Migration sets
people in motion as they leave one place, strike out for a second,
and possibly settle in a third. Intervening obstacles influence
the patterns of migration. Physical barriers such as deserts,
mountains, rivers, and seas or cultural barriers such as political
boundaries, languages, economic conditions, and cultural traditions
determine how people move and where they settle.
It is essential
that students develop an understanding of the dynamics of population
characteristics, distributions, and migration, and in particular
of how population distribution (in terms of size and characteristics)
is linked to the components of fertility, mortality, and mobility.
Standard
15: How physical systems affect human systems.
No matter
what the spatial scale, Earth's surface presents a picture of
physical diversity in terms of soils, climates, vegetation, and
topography. That diversity offers a range of environmental contexts
for people. The geographically informed person must understand
how humans are able to live in various kinds of physical environments
- not only those of the familiar mid-latitudes but also those
that seem less conducive to intensive settlement such as the Arctic
tundra and the Equatorial rain forest - and the role physical
features of those environments play in shaping human activities.
To live in
any given physical environment humans must develop patterns of
spatial organization, which take advantage of opportunities offered
and avoid or minimize the effects of limitations. Physical systems
and environmental characteristics do not, by themselves, determine
the pattern of human activity. If the incentives are great enough
settlement is possible, although at great cost and risk. The trans-Alaska
oil pipeline and construction techniques used in tundra-area settlements
are evidence of the extent of human ingenuity. However, the environment
does place limitations on human societies (e.g., a glaciated region
with its complex of features - thin, rocky water-logged soils
and unique landforms - offers few opportunities for commercial
agriculture).
A central
concept is the idea of carrying capacity - the maximum, sustained
level of use of an environment that is possible without incurring
significant environmental destruction. Environments vary in their
carrying capacity, and people's failure to understand it - or
their inability to live within it - can lead to environmental
disaster. Cyclical environmental change, especially in semiarid
environments, can pose particular problems for human use of that
environment and can lead to desertification, famine, and mass
migration, as has occurred in the Sahel of north-central Africa.
The relationship between any environment and its inhabitants is
mediated by decisions about how much to consume and in what ways
to consume. Energy conservation, water conservation, and recycling
can have significant effects on patterns of environmental use.
In modern
times human have used technology as a means of reducing the potential
effect of physical systems on human activity. In the United States,
for example, the wide-spread introduction of air-conditioning
has allowed people to relocate to the South and Southwest, regions
previously considered less suited to settlement. And in various
regions of Earth, use of the airplane has made it possible to
establish settlements and industries in hitherto inaccessible
places. However, the use of technology to overcome physical impediments
to human activity can also have wide-ranging and sometimes unexpected
consequences. For instance, the attempt to control rivers by building
dams and dredging waterways to prevent destructive and life-threatening
floods can also lead to diminished soil replenishment, increased
water salinity, reduced flow of sediment to oceans, and increased
riverbank erosion.
In addition
to carrying-capacity limitations, the physical environment often
imposes significant costs on human society. Natural hazards are
defined as processes or events in the physical environment that
are not caused by humans but whose consequences can be harmful.
They cost the United States billions of dollars each year. Hurricanes,
earthquakes, tornadoes, volcanoes, storms, floods, forest fires,
and insect infestations are events that are not preventable and
whose precise location, timing, and magnitude are not predictable.
Their negative consequences can be reduced by understanding the
potential vulnerability of different groups of people and by implementing
a variety of strategies such as improved building design, land-use
regulation, warning systems, and public education.
Whether the
issue is the mitigation of a natural hazard or recognition of
carrying capacity, students need to understand the characteristics
and spatial properties of the physical environment. It is essential
that they be able to translate an understanding of the physical
processes and patterns that shape Earth's surface into a picture
of that surface as a potential home for people. That home can
hold only so many people or be used only in certain ways without
incurring costs. Judgment as to the acceptability of those costs
requires an understanding of environmental opportunities and constraints.
The above
material is from Geograpy for Life: The National Geography Standards,
1994. The Geography Education Standards Project.
© 1994 National Geographic Societly, Wahington, D.C.
Reprinted with the permission of the National Goeographic Society.
