GENERAL CURRICULUM TEST OBJECTIVE : 0009 Understand basic geographic concepts, phenonmena, and processes, and demonstrate knowledge of major geographic featuers and regions of the world and the United States.
Geography can be divided into two broad areas of study: physical and social. Physical and political geography includes knowing about places, that is, where countries and states are and which places are capitals. Physical also includes physical land features like names and locations of mountains, rivers, and plateaus. Lastly, physical geography includes knowledge about climate. The other broad area of geography is social geography, which involves knowing about how people interact with their environment (like living near water because it facilitates trade and provides a food source); how and why people move from place to place; and how social systems like religion and politics help form regions. The movement called migration includes not only people but also plants and animals. Migrations on a large scale have resulted in changes in climate and geographic features like when the temporary connection of Siberia to Alaska (The Bering Land Bridge) allowed people to initially populate America. Current global events that create change and conflicts (water shortages, coastline erosion, and discoveries of oil fields) come from the interaction of people and the environment.
Geography instruction in K-12 is typically divided into five themes: location, place, human-environment interaction, movement, and region.
The globe, which is a spherical model of the earth, is divided into four hemispheres (meaning "half-spheres"). The equator is the imaginary dividing horizontal line of latitude between the northern and southern hemispheres and the Prime Meridian is the imaginary vertical dividing line of longitude between the east and west. These divisions are visible on maps, which are made by cartographers. There are seven continents, which divide the land (North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, Antarctica) and four oceans (Pacific, Atlantic, Arctic, and Indian). Each continent except for Australia is further divided into countries and states or provinces and all have major physical features (Be familiar with major landforms, especially: mountain, hill, plateau, plain, valley, desert, delta, mesa, basin, foothill, marsh, swamp, ocean, sea, river, canal, peninsula).
South America: largest rainforest with most biodiverse rainforest in the world, longest river in the world (Amazon)
Africa: Sahara desert is world’s largest desert but the continent also has jungles and grasslands and one of the world’s tallest mountains: Mount Kilimanjaro
Asia: More than 60% of Earth’s population lives on this continent. Mount Everest is on this continent
Australia: This is the only continent that is also one country. Largest reef in the world (The Great Barrier Reef) is on this continent.
Antarctica: Where the South Pole is – almost completely covered by ice that is 3 miles thick
Europe: Has 43 separate nations, sometimes this continent is called a very large peninsula
North America: Be familiar with the names and locations of all major rivers, mountain ranges, Great Lakes, states, and regional differences, for example, the Plain states are flat and fertile. You will likely need to know which states mountain ranges and rivers run through. The interactive resources will help!
Resources:
http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/Geography.htm
http://world-geography-games.com/
http://www.maps101.com/static_items/games/states.php
http://lizardpoint.com/geography/
http://mrnussbaum.com/wlandforms/
https://youtu.be/95TtXYjOEv4 (video - Climate)
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