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Notes: Be sure to include any vocabulary that needs definition in your larger notes on the ideas below

Flipchart on the Five Themes of Geography.

• What shapes the earth?

The earth is shaped by many things, natural and manmade. One of the things that shapes Earth is plate tectonics. These chunks of the lithosphere move and shift on the asthenosphere, where they can collide, move apart from each other, or slide past each other. One example of plates colliding is where the Himalayas are currently located. Millions of years ago, the Indian and Eurasian plates collided with each other, initially forming the mountains. Since then, they have not ceased pushing against each other, and for this reason, the mountains in the Himalayas continue to grow even taller each year. An example of plates moving away from each other is the Mid-Ocean Ridge in the Atlantic Ocean. Here, the North American and Eurasian plates are pulling away from each other, allowing magma to spurt up through the crack that is now there. The magma spreads over a large area and cools, allowing new magma to come up and repeat the cycle. This is called sea-floor spreading. Finally, an example of plates sliding past each other at a transform boundary is at the boundary between the Pacific and North American plates at California. Here, the two plates slide past each other, causing many earthquakes to occur.

Another natural phenomenon that shapes the earth is weathering and erosion. There are two types of weathering, which can be defined as the changing of rock due to exposure to the phenomena that occur at or near Earth's surface: mechanical weathering, which can also be called disintegration, and chemical weathering, which can also be called decomposition. Mechanical weathering occurs when a rock is split into smaller pieces of the same type of rock, so it doesn't change its composition. However, chemical weathering occurs when a rock's minerals are changed into a completely different mineral. Erosion is the removal and transport of rock by nature. An example of erosion can be found in the Timna Valley near the Red Sea. "Solomon's Pillars" http://sakharov.net/travel/timna.html is made of sandstone, which was eroded when water seeped through cracks in the rocks, separating the sandstone into pillars.

Finally, the last natural occurrence that shapes the earth are volcanoes. A volcano is two things: the opening in the crust where materials like molten rock, gases, and pyroclastic material erupt, and also the landform that forms around this opening. Volcanoes erupt when magma rises to the earth's surface. When this magma cools, it can sometimes add itself on to the volcano itself. This type of volcano is called a cinder cone. An example of a cinder cone is Capulin, which is a volcano located in New Mexico, USA. Also, magma that erupts (becoming lava when it reaches earth's surface) can gather in clumps and cool to form either pahoehoe (with smooth, rope like surfaces) or aa (with rough, jagged surfaces). This lava definitely changes the landscape and most certainly shapes the earth.

McDougal Littel Earth Science Textbook by Nancy E. Spaulding and Samuel N. Namowitz (copyright 2005 by McDougal Littel Inc., all rights reserved)

• Define Physical Place.

Physical Place is the landforms,climate, and flora and fauna of a particular location. One example is Yellowstone National Park.The park relief, also known as the difference between the highest and lowest elevations in an area, is due to tectonic activity and the erosional actions of water and ice. There are three mountain ranges in the park: the Gallatin Range in the northwest, the Absaroka Range in the east, and the Teton Range along the park’s southwestern boundary.Other geological features include glacier-carved valleys, fossil forests, and eroded basaltic lava flows.Yellowstone also has many rivers and lakes. The largest lake is the Yellowstone Lake, and the next largest lake is the Shoshone Lake. Rivers include the Yellowstone River, Gallatin River, the Snake River, and the Madison River. The park also has steam vents, fumaroles, colourful hot pools, mud cauldrons, paint pots, hot springs and terraces, hot rivers, and geysers. The most famous geyser in the park Old Faithful erupts roughly every ninety minutes. The climate is considered cool temperate and continental, yet it is very variable. Due to the parks large area and topography, weather conditions at different locations in the park can can vary. During the summer, it is usually sunny and warm, with daytime temperatures reaching up to eighty degrees Fahrenheit in July at lower elevations before dropping to the forties to fifties degree Fahrenheit in the night time. Precipitation in the warm months are light, but afternoon thunderstorms are common. Winters are cold and snowy with temperatures temperature of zero to twenty degrees Fahrenheit. Annual precipitation varies like temperature due to elevation.One thousand three hundred and fifty species of flowers have been identified in Yellowstone National Park. Four-fifths of the park is forested. The types of trees include Whitebark pines, Douglas firs, Lodgepole pines, Cottonwoods, and Willows. Many species of wildflowers thrive in the park. There are more than five dozen species of mammals in the park. The mammals in the park are buffalo, elk, mule deer, black bears, foxes, coyotes, brown bears, bighorn sheep, pronghorns, mountain goats, moose, mountain lions, lynx, bobcats, badgers, martens, weasels, river otters, hares and rabbits, shrews, a variety of bats, many species of small rodents, wolves, and beavers. Over three hundred different species of birds are in the park. These include songbirds, woodpeckers, jays, chickadees, nuthatches, ravens, sandhill cranes, white pelicans, common loons, bald eagles, ospreys, and peregrine falcons. FIsh include cutthroat trout, Arctic grayling, Rocky Mountain whitefish, and several nonnative. Reptiles include prairie rattlesnakes, boreal chorus frogs, and blotched tiger salamanders. Lastly, there are thermophiles such as varieties of algae and bacteria as well as thermophilic archaea.^{[1] [2]}

• Define Cultural Place.

Cultural Place is the human characteristics of a place. Such as architecture, communication, and transportation networks. Cultural Place is how humans accustom to the environment around them. Cities and roads are examples of what people do to the environment around them to make is possible to live there. When people change the landscape of nature, this can mean good and bad things. It is bad because it is not good to tear down trees and mother nature, but it is good because it is a good place to live. The cultural place of Texas is an example. There are many buildings and urbanized towns in Texas. People communicate by e-mails, letters and phones and travel in cars and metro buses. There are roads connecting everywhere. Texas is a very diverse area with many different religions, languages and traditions. Texas had a state government that regulates and controls the state. Texas had many windmills to make energy for things. There are many electronics and much technology everywhere. Grass fields, farms and ranches are all over the state of Texas. This is all part of Texas's Cultural Place. Cultural Place can also have to do with languages as well as religious and political ideologies. Cultural Place differs everywhere you go and can change all the time when people move from their own homes and bring their culture with them. ^[3]

• Define Movement

• Define Region Physical and Cultural

References

<reference> Movement- people interact with other people, places and things everyday. We travel from one place to another, we communicate to each other and we rely on products, information, and ideas from beyond our intermediate environment. Some of the causes of movement is war, natural disasters, politics, poverty, religious or political freedom, danger, better economy, curiosity or jobs. We learn about other cultures by talking and interacting with people from that culture or going there.
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