To help us organize our studies, we'll use five key themes. These themes are like a set of tools to help you understand and describe the world around you.
Movement ➡️: This theme helps us understand how and why things travel. It's not just about people moving from one place to another, but also about the flow of goods, ideas, and information. Think about a container ship arriving at a port or how a new music genre spreads across the islands.
Human-Environment Interaction 🤝: This is all about the relationship between people and the natural world. How do we adapt to our environment? How do we change it? We'll explore both the positive ways we use our environment and the negative impacts we might have on it.
Location 📍: This theme helps us pinpoint exactly where something is.
Absolute Location gives a precise, fixed address, like using latitude and longitude coordinates. This location never changes.
Relative Location describes where something is in relation to other places. For example, "Trinidad and Tobago is north of Venezuela."
Place 🏝️: When you think of a specific place, what comes to mind? The beautiful beaches of Barbados? The bustling streets of Kingston? Place describes what makes a location unique. It's about a location's unique human and physical characteristics, like its culture, climate, and landmarks.
Region 🌍: A region is an area that shares similar characteristics. We can define regions in a few ways:
Formal regions have clear boundaries, like the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).
Functional regions are organized around a central point, like the area served by a major airport.
Perceptual regions are based on how people see and feel about an area, like "the West Indies."