Good Morning
Good Afternoon
Geography
5 Themes of
Geography
what is geography?
• Who can tell me what is geography?
• Everything is Geography!
And
• Geography is Everything!
With a teammate,
can you divide
what
is geography?
these items into 2 equal groups?
What would you title each of your
groups?
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–
–
–
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Mountains
People
Rainfall
Animals
Cities
–
–
–
–
–
Religions
Agriculture
Rivers
Languages
Deserts
2 Branches of Geography
•
•
•
•
•
Mountains
Rainfall
Animals
Rivers
Deserts
Physical
Geography
•
•
•
•
•
People
Cities
Religions
Agriculture
Languages
Human
Geography
what is geography?
• The study of spatial variation
• How and why things differ from place
to place on the surface of the earth
• The study of how observable spatial
patterns evolved through time
Spatial variation: predominant religion
Why spatial variation exists: earthquakes
Spatial variation over time: deforestation
what is geography?
• Geography is a spatial science
• Spatial behavior of people
• Spatial relationships between
places
• Spatial processes that create or
maintain those behaviors and
relationships
Spatial behavior of people: population
Spatial relationships between places: trade
Spatial processes: urban commuting
Spatial, spatial, spatial
-adjective
1. of or pertaining to space.
2. existing or occurring in space;
having extension in space
Spatial, spatial, spatial
• OK, try this:
• Slap the desk of your neighbor.
• What happened in the room?
Say Hello to PLIRM
The 5 Themes of Geography
Place
Location
Interaction (Human/Environment)
Region
Movement
Five themes of geography
1) Place: the distinctive and distinguishing
physical and human characteristics of
locales. How you describe a “place.”
 Vocab : Physical geography and cultural
landscape, sense of place
 Skills: Description, compare and contrast
 Questions: What does ____ look like?
Why? How is it different from ____?
five themes of geography: Place
• Every place has characteristics that
are natural and some that are manmade.
Examples of Physical or Natural include: weather,
climate, natural vegetation, landforms, bodies of
water, native animal life, etc.
Examples of Human and Cultural include: jobs and
economic activities, population distribution and
density, religion, government, food, types of
homes, education, history, language, etc.
five themes of geography: Place
• Every place is a place – we study the
character and meaning of that place
• We have a “Sense of Place” (ex: the
feeling of home).
• We have a “Perception of Place”
(even if you’ve never been
somewhere, you think you know what
it’s like from TV, movies, others,
pictures, etc.
Five themes of geography
2) Location: the meaning of absolute and
relative position on the earth's surface
 Vocab : Global Positioning Systems (GPS),
scale, latitude and longitude, distance
 Skills: Map reading, identification
 Questions: Where is ____? Where is ____
relative to where I am?
Relative and absolute location
• Everyone Stand up!
• Tell the person next to you:
• Where you were born?
• Where you live?
(not exact address of course… creepers!)
• Where’s the most beautiful place
you’ve ever been?
Location:
Clear Falls High School
• 29.5193716
degrees
North
• 95.014818
degrees
West
Five themes of geography
3) Interaction (Human/Environment):
The relationships within places or the
development and consequences of
human-environment relationships
 Vocab : Ecosystems, resource,
environmental hazard, pollution
 Skills: Evaluation, analysis
 Questions: What human-environment
relationships are occurring? How do they
affect the place and its inhabitants?
Five themes of geography: INTERACTION
3) Interaction (Human/Environment):
This is how people ADAPT to their
environment.
EX: People that move to a cold climate
would have to change their style by
buying warmer clothes.
Also…
Five themes of geography: INTERACTION
How people CHANGE (modify) the
environment!
EX: Building subdivisions on what was
once a forest or building levees
along rivers.
Good Afternoon
Look over PLIRM lists
and make sure you
have Examples and
Drawings!
Five themes of geography: Regions
4) Regions: how they form and change
An area with one or more common characteristics
that make it different from surrounding areas
– Formal Regions
• Regions defined by governmental or administrative boundaries
(States, Countries, Cities)
• Regions defined by similar characteristics (Corn Belt, Rocky Mountain
region, Chinatown).
– Functional Regions
• Regions defined area organized around a NODE or focal point
(newspaper service area, cell phone coverage area, subway).
– Vernacular/Perceptual Regions
• Regions defined by peoples perception of something existing based
on people’s cultural identity (middle east, the south, or home.)


Skills: Synthesis, application
Questions: How has this spatial pattern
developed? Will it continue to change?
Five themes of geography: Regions
4) Regions: how they form and change
A region can be a place united by
PHYSICAL conditions.
EX: A desert, forest, mountain range,
plain, or a coast can be described as
a region
Five themes of geography: Regions
4) Regions: how they form and change
A region can also be somewhere that is
united by SIMILAR cultural traits.
EX: A place that is largely populated by
people of the Muslim religion would
be considered a region.
Formal? Functional? Perceptual?
Can a place be
included in more
than one region?
Five themes of geography
5) Movement: patterns and change in
human spatial interaction on the earth
 Vocab: Migration, diffusion, globalization
 Skills: Explanation, prediction
 Questions: Why did people move from
one place to another? What does it
mean for the people and places
involved? What affect did their new ideas
have on the native population?
Worldwide Net Migration
PLIRM