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Doing Geography

- What is geography?

Geography is the science of space and place on earth’s surface.

- What does geography do?

It is an integrative discipline that brings together the physical and human dimensions of the world in the study of people, places, and environments. Its subject matter is earth’s surface and the processes that shape it, the relationships between people and environments, and the connections between people and places.

- How do we “do” geography?

Geography is not a collection of arcane information. Rather, it is the study of the spatial aspects of human existence. People everywhere need to know about the nature of their world and their place in it. Geography has much more to do with asking questions and solving problems than it does with rote memorization of isolated facts.

- What is the value of geography?

The power and beauty of geography allow us to see, understand, and appreciate the web of relationships between people, places, and environments.

- Geography at the local level . . .

At the everyday level, for example, a geographically informed person can appreciate the location dynamics of street vendors and pedestrian traffic or fast-food outlets and automobile traffic; the routing strategies of school buses in urban areas and of backpackers in wilderness areas; the land-use strategies of farmers and of real estate developers.

- Geography at the regional level . . .

At a more extended spatial scale, that same person can appreciate the dynamic links between severe storms and property damage or between summer thunderstorms and flash floods; the use of irrigation systems to compensate for lack of precipitation or the connections between temperature inversions and urban air pollution episodes; the seasonal movement of migrant laborers in search of work and of vacationers in search of sunshine and warmth.

- Geography at the global level . . .

At a global level, the geographically informed person can appreciate the connections between cyclical drought and human starvation in the Sahel or between the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and the long-term consequences to human health and economic activities throughout eastern and northwestern Europe; the restructuring of human migration and trade patterns as the European Union becomes increasingly integrated or as the Pacific Rim nations develop a commonality of economic and political interests; and the uncertainties associated with the possible effects of global warming on human society or the destruction of tropical rain forests on global climate.

To the Geography Education Program.

Back to In Your Classroom.

 
 
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