 You are clear for launch. And with that, shut down your visors, O2 on, and prepare for ignition to O2. You can copy that and um... I'm Mr. Ruchoff and welcome to our first lesson in this world geography course in which you and I are going to be discovering the world together. In this lesson we're going to learn what geography is and some of the general concepts which we'll be using throughout the course. So what is geography? Well, geography is the study of the distribution that's how things are arranged and the interaction of physical and human features of the earth. The word geography comes from two Greek words G and Gryphia. G or Gio actually means earth and Gryphia means to write or to draw or in other words to describe. So put together geography literally is the describing of the world and that's what we're going to be doing in this course. So how does this differ from history? Well put simply, historians and geographers look at the world in different ways. Historians tell the story of the earth and the people in terms of time. Dates are important to historians to be able to sequence the events to make a sense of the world. Geographers, however, tell the story of the earth and its people in terms of space or spatial relationships. Geographers look at what happens based upon the spatial relationship or how close or how far things are between people and their environment. So even though in this course we will be reviewing some of earth's history, we're always going to be looking at the geography and how it has impacted that history. Now within geography there are two major branches which is physical geography and human geography. Physical geography looks at the physical characteristics of the earth. This includes the creation of mountains, volcanoes, valleys and other landforms. But it also looks at weather and climate which impacts the type of vegetation and animals that found in the world or what we call biomes. Now human geography looks at the human characteristics of the earth's people. Human characteristics include culture, religion, government, economics and much much more. Essentially human characteristics define everything mankind is and what mankind does. Now what is really powerful in geography is when geographers look at the interaction between both these physical characteristics and these human characteristics. For example geographers look at how rivers, mountains and deserts have impacted where people live, how that has impacted how they have learned their languages, what type of governments they have and even the cultures and the customs they have to account for their surroundings. This is what we're going to be spending a lot of our time in these lessons. Now in order for geographers to study these elements of the world they can use several different tools. These can include maps, charts, data as well as something known as the five themes of geography. These five themes, location, place, region, movement and human environment interaction describes how geography looks at the world. In this lesson they also provide a useful way to introduce some of the basic concepts of geography. The first theme is location which asks where is it? How do we know where somewhere is on the earth? Now here geographers can describe location as either an absolute or a relative location. An absolute location tells us exactly where something is using coordinates of latitude and longitude. Now latitude and longitude are imaginary lines running across the globe to tell how far either north and south you are or east or west you are on the globe. The first set of lines are latitude. Now the word latitude comes from the Latin word which means breath so latitude runs across the earth remember latitude flatitude. Now the most important line of latitude is the equator which runs right through the middle of the earth and divides the earth into a northern hemisphere and a southern hemisphere. Now if you're north of the equator you're in the northern hemisphere and if you're south of the equator you're at the southern hemisphere. Now how far you are from the equator is measured in degrees from the equator which is at zero degrees and the north and south poles being at 90 degrees north and 90 degrees south latitude respectfully. Now if you're at 45 degrees north latitude you're halfway between the equator and the north pole and if you're 45 degrees south latitude means you're halfway between the equator and the south pole. So if latitude tells us how far north and south you are longitude tells us how far east and west you are of something known as the prime meridian which runs right through Greenwich, England. The prime meridian which is at zero degrees longitude now separates the earth into an eastern and a western hemisphere. Now longitude is measured by degrees starting at the prime meridian which is remember as a zero degrees by either going east 180 degrees or west 180 degrees meeting at what is known on the other side of the world as the international dateline. Now one interesting role that longitude plays is in time. Now the time zones of the world are actually based upon longitude with each time zone being about 15 degrees longitude but latitude and longitude are primarily used in coordinates. Coordinates are kind of like addresses which use latitude which is going to be listed first and then longitude. Now if the location is in between a line of longitude and latitude that latitude is divided into minutes and then into seconds. So 29 degrees 30 minutes east longitude is exactly halfway between 29 degrees and 30 degrees latitude and we can further divide minutes into seconds to give a much more accurate location. Here is an example of a coordinates. These tells us that this location is at 30 degrees 39 minutes and 8.2 seconds north of the equator and it is at 96 degrees 20 minutes and 48 and a half seconds west of longitude. In other words this is the exact coordinates of my classroom at our school. So that is an absolute location. The other type of location is a relative location which doesn't use coordinates but rather describes a location by where it is in relation to another location. For example, Mexico is south of Texas, New York is on the east coast of the United States and France is about 4900 miles from Texas. Now relative location is not exactly as an absolute location but in most times it is actually much much easier to be able to describe where another place is to another person. Now in geography relative location will often use directions such as north, south, east and west. Now usually north is at the top of the map, south is at the bottom of the map, west is to the left of the map and east is to the right of the map. Now most maps will have ways known as a compass rose which verifies for you which way the map is oriented. Now the next theme of geography is place. Place answers the question of what is it like here? This is where a geographer starts to look at those physical and those human characteristics. Now when we talk about the physical characteristics of a place such as its climates, weather, whether there's mountains, their deserts, what type of vegetation then we're talking about the theme of geography of place. Life lives when we discuss who lives there, what language do they speak, what are the customs, what type of government do they have and other human characteristics we are also using the theme of geography of place. Then there are regions. Regions ask how is this area different or similar from another area and there are three types of regions. There is a formal, functional and a perceptional region. A formal region is defined as a connected area that has one or more measurable characteristics. For example, the Sahara Desert is a formal region because within that desert it shares all the same types of characteristics. But a formal region is also defined as the official boundaries that have been drawn. Country, state, county, city, borders are all formal regions. Now, functional regions are those which show how an area is related to a central hub or a focal point. Now, this might seem confusing, but here's a way to think of functional regions. If I say that the water fountain isn't functioning, you know isn't working. Likewise, if I said my computer was finally functioning, you know now it is working. Functional means work. So a map that shows how things work is a functional region. We've seen functional regions all around. When you go to AT&T and you see a map that shows where you can have AT&T function, that is a functional region. When you go and you'll see a map that shows how a subway works, that too is a functional region. And this map showing where you can buy Bluebell Ice Cream is a functional region or also what I like to call the region of happiness. So if a map is showing trade, business or transportation, all things at work, we're talking about a functional region. Then there are perceptual regions. The term perceptual comes from the word perceive, which means to see. Essentially, a perceptual region is a region that is dependent upon how someone sees a location. Unlike a formal region which uses either formal borders or measured characteristics, perceptual regions are determined by how a person wants to see a place or what story they want to tell. Take Texas for example. The region that Texas is in depends upon the story that its creator wants to tell. For example, Texas can be described as being in the American Southwest because of its climate, because of the location along the Mexican border, and the many immigrants are similar to other states in the American Southwest. A historian, however, who was studying the Civil War would call Texas a southern state because of the Confederacy. Now a government agency that tracks hurricanes will put Texas in what is known as the Gold Coast region to identify those states that would be affected by the hurricane that moves into the Gulf of Mexico, and the Department of Agriculture puts Texas in what is called the prairie region for its research. So what region Texas is in is fully dependent upon how people want to see Texas for their purposes. This is a perceptual region. Then there is movement. The fame of movement asks how does goods, people, and ideas move from one location to another? So how people settled areas of the world and their patterns of migration is part of the theme of movement. Geographers will also use spatial relationships to see how religions, languages, and customs spread around the world, which is known as culture of diffusion. They will also study how cultures separate from each other, which is known as culture of divergence, and how cultures come together, which is known as cultural convergence. And looking at movement, geographers will look at how distances affect the human experience. For example, geographers understand that a larger country, such as Russia, is harder for a government to control through something which is known as distance decay. But there are other several things that define distance. First, there is what is known as linear distance, which is measuring the distance from point A to point B in miles of kilometers. Next is time distance. How long does it take to move from one place to the other? While linear distance really doesn't change, time distance does change as you have advances in transportation technology, such as the automobile and the airplane, which has slashed the time distance it takes from moving from one point to the other, then there is something called psychological distance, which defines how people think about the distance from one place to another. Essentially, this is based upon how people look at both the time and the linear distance and make decisions upon that. Psychological distance may ask, what do they consider too far to travel? Now, this concept of psychological distance is very important to including two businesses. A survey asked Americans how far they would be willing to drive to a series of different businesses. When average Americans responded, they would travel up to 20 minutes to go to a closed store, but they would only go 12 minutes to go to a gym. This is an example of psychological distance. This leads businesses to make decisions on where to place their stores, all based upon the psychological distance that shoppers are willing to travel. Last, we have human-environment interaction. In this theme of geography, we ask how have people shaped and have been shaped by their environment? How do their people relate to the physical world? Human-environment interaction includes the effects of pollution, deforestation, and overuse of resources. It also includes how people have made intentional changes to their environment, such as building dams, irrigation for agriculture, and the building of canals to support transportation. In studying the theme of human-environment interaction, how people have adapted their homes, got their clothing and customs, because their environment is also examined. So these are the five themes of geography. But geographers do not only use one theme of geography at a time, rather they will use several of these themes, if not all of them, to be able to study a country or an area or the earth. Just like we will be using these themes of geography and other tools as we travel around the world in this course, I am so excited to be able to share the world with you and I hope you are too. So until the next lesson, keep on learning.