Day 1

 

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OUTLINE

INTRODUCTION TO GEOGRAPHY

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  • So WHAT IS GEOGRAPHY? -- Geography answers Three Questions

 

  • Most students think that geography is memorizing the locations of countries, capitals, rivers, etc. Geography is really much more than this. I think it is best to remember that geographers try to answer three questions:
    • WHERE?
    • WHY THERE?
    • WHY DO WE CARE? or WHAT CAN WE LEARN?
  • History Analogy
    • History and Geography are quite similar. When historians study a topic they focus on the WHEN. Hence you can have subjects like the: history of war, the history of sports, the history of comic books, etc. Geographers can study these same issues, and virtually anything else, but the geographer's perspective is SPATIAL, rather than TEMPORAL like the historians. Hence there can also be the geography of war, the geography of sports, and the geography of comic books. What geographers add to such topics is the spatial perspective.

     

    • History takes a TEMPORAL approach and geography take a SPATIAL approach

     

    • History studies
      • WHEN?
      • and WHY THEN?

     

    • Geography studies
      • WHERE?
      • and WHY THERE?

     

    • So you can study:
      • the history of South America or the geography of South America
      • the history of sports or the geography of sports
      • the history of women or the geography of women
      • the history of beer or the geography of beer
      • etc.

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