People and the Land: Intro to Cultural Geography - GEO 210
https://courses.vccs.edu./courses/GEO210-PeopleandtheLandIntrotoCulturalGeography
Effective: 2023-05-01
Course Description
Provides an introduction to themes in human geography and the ways in which human geographers study spatial relationships in the world. Emphasizes geospatial tools and concepts to examine global patterns of human demographics, culture, geopolitics, and economic and environmental interdependence through introduction to a broad range of subject matter. This is a Passport and UCGS transfer course.
Lecture 3 hours. Total 3 hours per week.
3 credits
The course outline below was developed as part of a statewide standardization process.
General Course Purpose
This course emphasizes geographic literacy, awareness of and engagement with global issues, and cultural diversity. The course uses a thematic approach and requires students to think critically about and apply geographic concepts to contemporary topics, appreciating the impacts of individual and collective actions.
Course Objectives
- Critical Thinking
- Analyze the interrelationships among societies and culture, politics, economics, and space.
- Identify locales impacted by climate change and describe how climate threats vary across space.
- Scientific Literacy and Quantitative Reasoning
- Read and interpret quantitative and qualitative geographic data represented in maps, tables, charts, graphs, landscapes, and images (e.g., satellite, photographs, cartoons)
- Interpret data and construct explanatory hypotheses.
- Explain how maps, images, and landscapes illustrate or relate to geographic principles, processes, and outcomes
- Civic Engagement
- Evaluate impacts of human activity on the environment.
- Discuss the relevance of one?s own actions in a globalized world.
- Written Communication
- Conduct analysis through written and/or oral communication.
- Human Diversity
- Evaluate diverse human societies in terms of their economic activities and environmental sustainability.
- Demonstrate an appreciation and respect for the diversity of perspectives, world-views, and cultures.
Major Topics to be Included
- Geographic literacy
- Some learning outcomes that could satisfy this topic include:
- Use geographic tools such as latitude and longitude to identify specific locations on Earth.
- Read and interpret various types of maps.
- Describe and explain various geospatial technologies and their uses.
- Explain how Geographers use Land Use Land Cover Change to analyze human?s impact on the Earth?s surface
- Geography Concepts
- Some learning outcomes that could satisfy this topic include:
- Apply geographic concepts to explain real-world scenarios. Concepts include: region, place, location, site and situation, networks, mobility, diffusion, human-environment relationships, scale and scales of analysis, globalization, cultural landscape.
- Demographics: Population and Migration
- Some learning outcomes that could satisfy this topic include:
- Use quantitative data represented in maps and charts to describe global population distribution and composition.
- Identify population patterns and trends across space and time.
- Interpret population pyramids to discuss growth and decline of generations and the economic significance of different age structures.
- Explain theories and models of population growth and decline (e.g., Malthusian, the demographic transition model).
- Explain how changing gender roles has demographic consequences in different parts of the world.
- Identify and explain causal factors of migration.
- Describe examples of voluntary and forced migration (e.g. refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced persons).
- Discuss effects of human migration (e.g. legal, environmental, demographic, cultural).
- Cultural Geographies
- Some learning outcomes that could satisfy this topic include:
- Describe the distribution and the diffusion of major languages and religions around the world.
- Explain patterns and landscapes of language, religion, ethnicity, and gender.
- Political Geography
- Some learning outcomes that could satisfy this topic include:
- Define and identify examples of the different types of political entities: states, nations, nation-states, stateless nations, multinational states, multistate nations, and autonomous and semi autonomous regions.
- Define and describe concepts of political power and territoriality through, for example, shatterbelts and choke points.
- Identify boundary types and explain the function of international and internal boundaries.
- Explain how different forms of governance, unitary and federal states, affect spatial organization.
- Identify and define factors that lead to the devolution, or fragmenting, of states.
- Explain how concepts of centrifugal and centripetal forces apply at the state scale.
- Agriculture & Food
- Some learning outcomes that could satisfy this topic include:
- Explain the connection between physical geography, political economy, and agricultural regions.
- Identify the major centers of origin for domestication of plants and animals, and explain how plants and animals diffused globally.
- Describe the timing and major innovations of the three agricultural revolutions.
- Identify regions where foraging is a continued practice and describe the advantages of relying on multiple and traditional food sources.
- Explain the consequences of the Agricultural Revolutions (e.g., First through Third, Green and Gene) and discuss issues of economic and environmental sustainability.
- Using the concept of supply chains, explain the interdependence among regions of agricultural production and consumption.
- Discuss causes of food insecurity and possible solutions.
- Urban Geography
- Some learning outcomes that could satisfy this topic include:
- Use the geography concepts of site and situation to explain the processes that initiate and further urbanization and suburbanization.
- Explain how cities embody processes of globalization.
- Use urban geography models to explain the internal structure of cities.
- Discuss historical causes for residential segregation (for example, redlining, blockbusting).
- Identify and discuss the impacts of different urban design initiatives.
- Discuss challenges to urban sustainability and identify response strategies.
- Economic Development
- Some learning outcomes that could satisfy this topic include:
- Describe the origins of the Industrial Revolution, the early diffusion of industrialization, and the relationship to the distribution of natural resources.
- Define the five economic sectors.
- Describe the spatial and landscape patterns associated with industrial production.
- Use social and economic measures of development to discuss levels of development around the world.
- Describe inequalities and unevenness in development as related to gender and place.
- Explain different theories of economic and social development (e.g., Rostow, Wallerstein, dependency theory).
- Explain how sustainability principles relate to and impact industrialization and spatial development.
- Human-Environment Interactions
- Some learning outcomes that could satisfy this topic include:
- Identify and discuss major issues of human impact on the environment (e.g., climate change, soil erosion, air quality, water scarcity) and practices for environmental restoration.
- Compare and contrast renewable and nonrenewable energy resources
- Describe evidence for and causes of current climate change.
- Discuss individual and collective strategies to address climate change.
- Identify locales impacted by climate change and evaluate the (economic, security, or other) impacts of these changes.