Bell Ringer

• What are the five themes of geography?

• What is the difference between site and situation?

• What is a hearth? What is an example of a cultural hearth?

Bell Ringer

• What is a vernacular region?

• Why can it be said that maps lie?

• What is cultural diffusion?

Bell Ringer

• What is Human Geography?

• What is Scale?

• Why do you think the study of geography is important?

Bell Ringer

• What is Culture?

• What is diffusion?

• What is the difference between immigration and emmigration?

AP Human Geography

Why of Where?

• Why and how do things come together in certain places to produce particular outcomes?

• Why are some things found in certain places but not in others?

• To what extent do things in one place influence those in other places?

So What?

• Why does it matter that things are different across space?

• What role does a place play in its region and in the world, and what does that mean for people there and elsewhere?

Some Focuses of Geography• Human Geography: Focus on how people make

places, how we organize space & society, and how we make sense of others & ourselves in out localities, regions, and the world

• Physical Geography: study of physical phenomenon on the earth

• Medical Geography: mapping the distribution of a disease (first step to finding its cause)

It’s all Spatial• Interest in the spatial

arrangement of places and phenomena, how they are laid out, organized, and arranged on the Earth, and how they appear on the landscape

• Geographers can also look for patterns to help discern more information, or relationships between places and things

Spatial Perspective

• Since geographers are trying to look at multiple sub fields all at once, the five themes of geography were developed

• These five themes represent all things that geographers look at

5 Themes

1. Location2. Human-environment3. Region4. Place5. Movement

1. Location Where Am I?• Relative Location: Where you are in relation to something • Absolute Location: using latitude and longitude

(27.2758° N, 80.3550° W) (GPS & GIS[Geographic Information Systems])

• Site v Situation– Site: internal, physical characteristics of a place– Situation: geographic location

• New Orleans

2. Human-environment

• How people modify or alter the environment to fit individual or societal needs

• Five toos: Too hot, too cold, too dry, too wet, too hilly

1. 3. Region: Links places together using any parameter the geographer uses– Formal Region: everything &

anything inside the region has the same parameter- New York

– Functional Region: Defined around a certain point or node (Radio tower) Distance Decay

– Perceptual (Vernacular) Region: exists in an individuals perception or feelings

• 4. Place

The description of what we see and of how we see and experience a certain aspect of the Earth’s Surface (Description of the Place: Hot, Cold, Wet, etc)

• 5. Movement

• Also known as spatial interaction

• How linked is a place to the outside world?– More linked, more important– Less linked, less importance (REGARDLESS of

Geographic distance)

6 Essential Elements of Geography1. Spatial World (No Place is Alone)2. Places & Regions (Describing places & regions)3. Physical Systems (close to human environ)4. Human Systems (Anything humans have done to

modify earth)5. Environment & Society (relation between environ

& society: economic, sustainable, environmental, preservationist)

6. Use of Geography in Today’s Society (How geography is used today)

US Map

1. New England2. South3. Midwest4. Middle Atlantic5. West Coast6. Great Plains7. Bible Belt8. Sun Belt

9. Rust Belt10.Corn Belt11.Frost Belt12.Snow Belt13.Tornado Alley14.Rocky Mountains

What Maps Tell Us

• Maps are important (Yes, they are)• Maps are Good• Maps are our friends

• Reference Maps: locations & geographic features

• Thematic Maps: tell stories, typically showing the degree of some attribute or the movement of a phenomena– Scale:

• Small: Where details are relatively small

• Large: Where details are relatively large (Contains more detail)

WHY MAPS LIE!!!!!!!

• Maps are evil• They are out to trick us• EVERYTHING YOU KNOW

IS WRONG!!!!!

Mercator Maps• Pro’s:

– This is the Earth the way I’m used to seeing it

– Angles aren’t distorted if you’re looking at shapes locally

– meridians and parallels are all straight lines, and it’s a rectangle.

– I can use this map to sail in straight lines if I want to.

• Con’s: – It has to be cut off at the top

and bottom because otherwise the map expands to infinity.

– It totally distorts real proportions

– This is why we’ve never located the North Pole.

Planar Projection (Azimuthal)

• Pro’s: Even though the shapes get distorted the further you get from the center, the distances along the longitude lines are accurate.

• Con’s: What sort of jokers would ever seriously use this map…. Other than the United Nations…

Dymaxion Projection (Fuller)• Pro’s:

– Land-masses are connected like a big island – This map is made by projecting the globe onto an icosahedron and unfolding it.

• Con’s: – Fuller intended it not to have North as up, or for there not to be an up at all, as a hippy

statement about the nature of the universe.– I feel as though I am being tricked into printing this, cutting it out, and trying to make it work

knowing it will never ever work.

Equal Projection Map

• AKA: Peter’s Projection Map• Pros– Still keeps the world

“square”– Still keeps the latitude &

longitude in line– Doesn’t have as many

distortions as Mercator (geographically, politically, psychologically)

• Cons– It’s the world, and I know its

the world, and I know its right, but it looks so wrong

– West Wing & 25 Maps

Culture

• Culture refers not only to the music, literature, and arts of a society but also to all the other features of its way of life (modes of dress, living habits, food preferences, government, law, education, etc)

• Besides describing lifestyle, culture also refers to the prevalent beliefs of a group– Behavior patterns which are

characteristic of the members of a society and which are not the result of biological inheritance (Hoebel)

Understanding Culture

• A single attribute in a culture is known as a cultural trait

• A particular combination of traits unique to a culture is known as a cultural complex

• The area where cultural traits developed and from which these traits diffused is known as a cultural hearth

• When a trait develops independently at numerous different hearths it is known as independent invention (Farming)

Cultural Diffusion

• Inevitably, people will move, and they will take their culture with them

• The spread of ideas or innovation from its hearth to other places is known as cultural diffusion (Carl Sauer)

• In 1970 Swedish geographer Torsten Hagerstrand presented research suggesting that time and distance affect the spread of diffusion

Time-Distance Decay• Hagerstrand said that diffusion of a trait depends, in

part, on time and distance from the hearth• The farther from the hearth, the less likely it is to be

accepted• Acceptance of a trait becomes less likely the longer it

takes to reach its potential location– Regardless of everything, some ideas/practices are not

accepted or adopted because of prevailing cultural attitudes or taboos (Cultural Barriers)

Diffusion

• Geographers classify diffusion in two categories– Expansion Diffusion: an innovation/idea develops

in a hearth and remain strong while also spreading outward• Contagious Diffusion• Hierarchical Diffusion• Stimulus Diffusion

– Relocation Diffusion

Types of Expansion Diffusion

• Contagious Diffusion: diffusion in which nearly all adjacent individuals/places are affected (Islam)

• Hierarchical Diffusion: diffusion of a feature or trend from one key person or node of authority or power to other persons or places (fashion or music)

• Stimulus Diffusion: spread of an underlying principle, even though a specific characteristic is rejected (McDonalds in INDIA)

***Remember to show expansions of religion video

Relocation Diffusion• When thinking of expansion diffusion, it is the

idea/trait/disease that expands out• With relocation diffusion, actual movement of

individuals who have adapted the idea or innovation carry it to a new location – Migrants (Ethnic Neighborhoods Little Havana)• Immigrant• Emigrant

Force of Nature… or possibilities

• Aristotle (Ancient Greek philosopher) expressed the idea of environmental determinism.

• Environmental Determinism states that human behavior, individual or collective, is strongly affected, if not controlled/determined, by the physical environment around them. (Criticized)

• Backlash led to possibilism. Possibilism argues that the environment could limit the choices a culture could make. That culture would then make the best choice based on the technology available to them. (More widely accepted)