Biomes
Ecosystems
Climate
Geography
Physical
Geography
To better understand how humans, cultures, and civilizations originate and develop, one must understand the effects of the environment. Geography concerns the earth’s land, climate, plant and animal life. It also tells about the people who live on the earth, the places they create, and how these places differ.
Physical geography is the branch of geography dealing with the natural features of the earth, the home of humans.
Physical geography looks at the water, air, animals, and land of the planet earth (i.e. everything that is part of the four spheres - the atmosphere , biosphere , hydrosphere , and lithosphere .) Physical geography is closely related to geography's sister science - geology - but physical geography focuses more on the landscapes at the surface of the earth and not what is inside our planet. All places have characteristics that give them meaning and character and distinguish them from other places on earth. Physical characteristics include such elements as climate, landforms, flora and fauna.
Have you ever wondered why one area of the world is a desert, another a grassland, and another a rainforest? Why are there different forests and deserts, and why are there different types of life in each area? The answer is climate.
Climate is the characteristic condition of the atmosphere near the earth's surface at a certain place on earth. It is the long-term weather of that area (at least 30 years). This includes the region's general pattern of weather conditions, seasons and weather extremes like hurricanes, droughts, or rainy periods. Two of the most important factors determining an area's climate are air temperature and precipitation.
World biomes are controlled by climate. The climate of a region will determine what plants will grow there, and what animals will inhabit it. All three components, climate, plants and animals are interwoven to create the fabric of a biome (“
World Climate Zones
”).
A biome is a large geographical area of distinctive plant and animal groups, which are adapted to that particular environment. The climate and geography of a region determines what type of biome can exist in that region. Major biomes include deserts, forests, grasslands, tundra, and several types of aquatic environments. Each biome consists of many ecosystems whose communities have adapted to the small differences in climate and the environment inside the biome.
Ecosystems are the interactions between the living things and the nonliving things in a place. In an ecosystem, the plants , animals , and other organisms rely on each other and on the physical environment – the soil, water, and nutrients, for example.
Even though they are living in the same place, each species in an ecosystem has its own role to play. This role is called a niche. The niche for one species might be to climb trees and eat their fruit, while the niche for another species might be to hunt for small rodents. For a tree, a niche might be to grow tall and make food with the Sun’s energy through the process of photosynthesis . If the niche of two species is very similar, they might compete for food or other resources.
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Five themes of
Geography
(video):
Location
Exact Location
Longitude
Latitude
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Sometimes ecosystems get out of balance. If, for example, it rains a lot and a type of bird that thrives with extra water increases in numbers, other species in the ecosystem might be crowded out. The birds might take food or space or other resources from other species. They might eat all the food. Sometimes an ecosystem naturally gets back into balance. Other times an ecosystem will become more and more out of balance. Today, human actions are having an impact on ecosystems all over the world. Making buildings and roads, fishing and farming all have an impact on ecosystems. Pollution on land, air pollution , and water pollution is sending many ecosystems out of balance too.
The five themes of geography are a great way to organize the world. The first theme of Location answers the question, “Where is it?”
The most common way to locate points on the surface of the Earth is by standard, geographic coordinates called latitude and longitude. These coordinate values are measured in degrees, and represent angular distances calculated from the center of the Earth.
Latitude and Longitude
We can imagine the Earth as a sphere, with an axis around which it spins. The ends of the axis are the North and South Poles. The
Equator is a line around the earth, an equal distance from both poles. The Equator is also the latitude line given the value of 0 degrees. This means it is the starting point for measuring latitude. Latitude values indicate the angular distance between the Equator and points north or south of it on the surface of the Earth.
A line connecting all the points with the same latitude value is called a line of latitude . All lines of latitude are parallel to the Equator, and they are sometimes also referred to as parallels. Parallels are equally spaced. There are 90 degrees of latitude going north from the Equator, and the North Pole is at 90 degrees N.
There are 90 degrees to the south of the Equator, and the South Pole is at 90 degrees S.
A degree of latitude is approximately 69 miles, and a minute of latitude is approximately 1.15 miles. A second of latitude is approximately 0.02 miles, or just over 100 feet. A degree of longitude varies in size. At the equator, it is approximately
69 miles, the same size as a degree of latitude. The size gradually decreases to zero as the meridians converge at the poles. At latitude of 45 degrees, a degree of longitude is approximately 49miles. Because a degree of longitude varies in size, minutes and seconds of longitude also vary, decreasing in size towards the poles.
Lines of longitude, called meridians, run perpendicular to lines of latitude, and all pass through both poles. Each longitude line is part of a great circle . There is no obvious 0-degree point for longitude, as there is for latitude. By international agreement, the meridian line through Greenwich, England, is currently given the value of 0 degrees of longitude; this meridian is referred to as the Prime Meridian.

Map
Projections
Types of map distortions
Relative
Location
Longitude values indicate the angular distance between the
Prime Meridian and points east or west of it on the surface of the Earth. The Earth is divided equally into 360 degrees of longitude. There are 180 degrees of longitude to the east of the
Prime Meridian. There are also 180 degrees of longitude to the west of the Prime Meridian. The 180-degree longitude line is opposite the Prime Meridian on the globe, and is the same going either east or west.
It is impossible to accurately represent the spherical surface of the earth on a flat piece of paper. While a globe can represent the planet accurately, a globe large enough to display most features of the earth at a usable scale would be too large to be useful, so we use maps. Also imagine peeling an orange and pressing the orange peel flat on a table - the peel would crack and break as it was flattened because it can't easily transform from a sphere to a plane. The same is true for the surface of the earth and that's why we use map projections.
The term map projection can be thought of literally as a projection. If we were to place a light bulb inside a translucent globe and project the image onto a wall - we'd have a map projection.
Depending on the purpose of a map, the cartographer will attempt to eliminate distortion in one or several aspects of the map.
Remember that not all aspects can be accurate so the map maker must choose which distortions are less important than the others. The map maker may also choose to allow a little distortion in all four of these aspects to produce the right type of map.

Conformality the shapes of places are accurate

Distance - measured distances are accurate

Area/Equivalence - the areas represented on the map are proportional to their area on the earth

Direction - angles of direction are portrayed accurately
Relative location is less precise. It helps you orient yourself to a spot that is referenced by another known spot. Relative location deals with the interaction that occurs between and among places. It refers to the many ways—by land, by water, even by technology—that places are connected. This is a picture of the Galveston Bay area.
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Types of environments:
Grasslands
Place
Physical
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The second theme of geography is place, It answers the question, “What is there?” Each place has distinctive characteristics that distinguish it from other places. Geographic characteristics are divided into two categories: physical characteristics and human characteristics.
Physical characteristics describe the natural environment of the place indigenous to the location.. They include:
 landforms and bodies of water .
 weather is how hot or cold and how wet or dry a place is.

Climate - is the kind of weather a place has over a long period time.
 soil -is the top layer of the Earth in which plants can grow. Sand, silt, and clay are the basic types of soil. Types of soil vary from place to place.\
 minerals are natural substances, such as coal or gold, which are found in rock and in the ground.
 vegetation is plant life. Types of vegetation vary from place to place, such as, forest, grassland, tundra and desert. Climate affects the vegetation of a place.
 animal life - includes all the large and small animals that live on Earth .
Physical place is the sum total of all the features that make the place unique.
Physical place may change over time due to climatic, geologic, or man-made influences.
Every continent except Antarctica has grasslands , which are called by many names— savannas are those closest to the equator(see picture to the left) , pampas, plains or prairie ( farther from the equator) , and steppes ( nearest the polar areas). Grasslands are usually located in the interior of continents, between forests to the north and deserts to the south. There are not many bushes in the grassland and trees can be found only by rivers and streams. Grasslands receive about 10 to 30 inches of rain per year. Grassland soil tends to be deep and fertile. The roots of perennial grasses usually penetrate far into the soil. Grasslands are found on either side of two desert belts that circle the earth. About one quarter of the earth's land is in the grasslands . Temperate grasslands once covered much of the interior of North
America, and they were common in Eurasia and South America as well. They are highly productive when they are first converted to agricultural uses because the organic material in the soil comes from hundreds of thousands of years of decomposition.

Forests
Deciduous
Coniferous
Rain Forests
Cultural Place
Forests are different all over the world. Two things can help you determine what kind of forest you're looking at: the climate (warm or cold) and the kinds of trees you see. The two basic types are deciduous and evergreen forests.
Deciduous forests can be found in the eastern half of North America, and the middle of Europe (see picture on left). There are many deciduous forests in Asia. Some of the major areas that they are in are southwest Russia, Japan, and eastern China, South America.
There are deciduous forests located in New Zealand, and southeastern Australia also.
The northern coniferous forest biome occupies a vast area below the tundra, extending completely across
Canada and into interior Alaska (see picture on right).
The biome is also referred to as the boreal forest or taiga .
It is filled with evergreens such as pine, fir, and spruce. Found also in Europe, and Asia, taiga is the Earth's largest land habitat, covering about
17 percent of the planet. Winters are long and cold in taiga forests, and several feet of snow can cover the ground all winter long.
It never snows in a tropical rain forest , but it's nearly always wet. The soaking rain helps so many plants grow that the dense treetops often block out sunlight. These forests are alive with the sights, smells, and sounds of one of the richest animal habitats on Earth. Although tropical rain forests occupy only 6 percent of Earth's land area, they shelter more than half of the world's species—including jaguars and monkeys.
This is a picture of a tropical rain forest.
Cultural place is the human characteristics that describe the people of a place (past and present), their languages, religions, economic activities, political systems, population distribution and their modifications of the environment.
• human-made features are modifications people have made to the land.
(buildings, bridges, tunnels, railroad tracks, dams, monuments, piers, cultivated land)
•
language is a way of communicating with words, symbols, signs, or gestures that are used and understood by a group of people.
• religion is a belief in a god or gods and the way people express this belief in their life and worship.
• political system is how people develop and change structures of power, authority and government.
• economic activities show how people make a living in a place.
• population distribution
is the pattern of the number of people who live in a place. For example, more people live in cities than in rural areas. More people live near bodies of water than in very dry places.
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Turner’s
Theory in practice
Interaction
Geographic
Imagination
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One of the most important themes in geography is the relationship between the natural environment and human beings . Land, natural resources, climate, and vegetation are basic tools necessary to human life. The environment in which people live impacts the way they live and the ways they make a living. So, to give a simple if extreme example, people who live in deserts develop societies and ways of making a living that fit with the realities of the desert environment.
However, it is also most important to remember that human-environmental interaction is not a one-way affair. The histories of human societies in Africa, as in all other areas of the world, are in part the story of our use and exploitation of resources in our environment, land, minerals, water, plants, animals, and air. The use of the natural environment through cultivation, hunting, grazing, mining, building villages, cities, roads, and through countless forms of pollution can permanently impact the environment
All places on the earth have advantages and disadvantages for human settlement.
High population densities have developed on flood plains, for example, where people could take advantage of fertile soils, water resources, and opportunities for river transportation. By comparison, population densities are usually low in deserts. Yet flood plains are periodically subjected to severe damage, and some desert areas, such as Israel, have been modified to support large population concentrations. Fredrick Turner's thesis said that geography determines the character of a people and, depending on the situation, gives them certain advantages and disadvantages. His thesis explicitly states how the Frontier shaped the American mind to be open to new things and to strive for what was new.
To live comfortably or even to survive in many parts of the world, people must make changes in the environment or they must adapt to conditions they cannot change or both. How people choose to change their environment depends on their attitudes toward the natural setting and on the technology they have available.
Such changes also depend on the cultural view of the people have of their relationship with the natural world. Some groups make as little change as possible, preserving the natural environment. Others see the environment as a resource to be utilized by humans for their own benefit and progress. People interpret the world based on unique understandings, perceptions, and knowledge. This particular world view or interpretation of the world is geographic imagination and is reflected in our behavior towards others and is manifested in the cultural landscape.
Members of a particular social or ethnic group have a shared understanding of landscapes, places, and peoples. This common view of the world has been presented to the group over time by earlier generations and is accepted as truth and reality, especially where it concerns other groups.

Movement
Cultural
Hybridity
Region
The movement of people, goods and ideas between places means that events in other places can have an effect beyond the local level. Transportation routes, communication systems, trade connections, emigrations and wars link people and places throughout the world. Products, ideas, and information are sent around the globe, either slowly by ground, sea, and air transport or almost instantaneously by electronics.
The movement of people can spread ideas and cultural characteristics from one place to another. Sometimes these characteristics are accepted in the new location, and the culture is changed by the linkage. This combination of different geographic imaginations can blend together to form a hybrid culture. Cultural hybridity from movement and the interaction of various ideas, beliefs, and products.
results
This brings us back to Theme one…location!
A region is an area that is unified by some feature or a mixture of features. It is used to generalize about parts of the earth’s surface in either physical or cultural terms. Physical regions are large, such as the Gulf Coast or the Rocky Mountains or the desert. They are defined by their landforms, climate, plants or animals.
Proximity to the Gulf of Mexico is the defining characteristic of the Gulf Coast
Region of Texas. Places in this region share common features of physical place.
Cultural region can be as small as a neighborhood or as large as a nation. They are defined by a common language or religion, political or economic (Wall Street) features. For example, an Islamic region would share the common characteristic of having a large Muslim population. It might also have architecture that reflects a predominantly Muslim culture. Beliefs, behaviors and artifacts share the common features of cultural place.
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