Place

Physical and Human Characteristics>

•What is a place like?

•What do we mean by the terms “physical, human and cultural” when we describe a place?

A place is defined by human (political, structures, etc.), physical (land and water forms) and cultural (human & geography interaction) features in a spatial context (like a map in our brains). We use these “mental maps” combining the effects of humans with the physical environment.

Next time you go into a familiar house, building, street, etc., stop to think about how you know your way around. You probably have memories of people, smells of flowers, structures, knowledge of which way is north, etc. that help you go from one point to another. What about when you leave your town/city? How do you know when you really leave and enter a new geographic area? You have mental clues that tell you of the change.

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Tasks:

Task 9- Mental Map: You are to leave your home and travel to a familiar house, place in the city, countryside, etc. Take a notepad and pencil. Starting from when you walk out of your door, take notes about clues that come to mind telling you where you are and which direction you need to follow. You are to draw simple pictures of the images that you see. Ask yourself: “What is telling me that I am going the correct way?” Remember to not just depend on your eyes but use your sense of smell and physical input (e.g., crossing a railroad track in your car) for clues that help are a part of your mental map. You will find yourself thinking in terms of the human and physical characteristics that help you get from here to there. :)

Write up your mental map in a blog post. You can get very creative and write this as a story with fictional characters and a plot. Work to add some of the images you drew into your post.

Task 10- Landforms: Create a Keynote or PowerPoint or Google Presentation slideshow (visual dictionary) where you define the following terms in words and images. Do one slide per term with a large image, the term and a brief definition. Make the last slide your bibliography for images. Use the following sites in your search:

About.com Enchanted Learning Visual Geography

Atoll Barrier Islands Bay Beach Canyon Coast Continent

Continental Shelf Delta Desert Estuary Fjord Glacier Gulf

Harbor Inlet Island Isthmus Lake Mountains Peninsula

Piedmont Plateau Rain Forest Reef River Savannas Steppe

Subcontinent Valley Volcano

Note: Always remember to record the sites you get your images from. Create a bibliography slide with the URLs listed.

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