The Six Essential Elements of Geography and the Eighteen Geography Standards

By essential we mean that each piece is central and necessary: We must look at the world in this way. By element we mean that each piece is a building block for the whole. Each essential element contains a number of geography standards. Each standard presents a set of ideas and approaches that a geographically informed person needs to know and understand.

people are central to geography in that human activities help shape Earth’s surface, human settlements and structures are part of Earth’s surface, and humans compete for control of Earth’s surface.

1. The spatial distribution of population

2. The characteristics of populations at different scales (local to global)

3. The causes and effects of human migration

Study the distribution of population on a map of the student’s local community or state and suggest reasons for the patterns observed (e.g., more people live closer to downtown than far away, perhaps because they want to be close to where they work; and more people live in one part of the state than another, perhaps because it has more resources and job opportunities)

Study a map of the united States showing population densities and then write an account suggesting how differences in density are related to location (e.g., population density is higher east of the Mississippi River than west of it and higher on the East Coast and West Coast than in the mountains and deserts of the western part of the country)

Suggest reasons for the distribution of people on Earth (e.g., few people live where it is very dry or very cold) by comparing maps of population distribution with maps that show climate, precipitation, length of growing season, natural resources, and other physical features

Create graphs and maps of the local community showing population characteristics (e.g.,., ethnicity, age distribution, number of families and single house holds, number of employed and unemployed, males and females)

Develop a census questionnaire featuring population characteristics of interest to the student (e.g., number of sisters and brothers, distance traveled to school, place of birth, month of birth, favorite sport, types of pets, ages of parents and grandparents), collect the data from students in two classes, and describe and compare the two populations

Use data, graphs, and maps of population characteristics to compare the population characteristics (e.g., life expectancy, infant mortality, urban population, and per capita gross domestic product) of two places (e.g., two states, two countries, two different world regions such as Latin America and Africa, or two subregions within a single region such as southeast Asia or East Asia)

Read narratives describing a variety of migrations in different regions of the world and then discuss the reasons for each migration (e.g., a voluntary move such as the move of a family to a larger apartment closer to a school, landless Easterners pulled to homesteads in the Great Plains, or an involuntary move such as Africans being transported to North and South America or refugees from the potato famine fleeing starvation in Ireland)

Write a diary entry or short play describing the reasons why an individual or family would be involved in a voluntary or involuntary migration (e.g., a family deciding to leave Europe to settle in the United States in the 1890’s, a man in China deciding to go to the United States to work in railroad construction in the 1860’s, or a Turk deciding to go to Germany to seek employment in the 1980s)

Write an account and draw a sketch map to suggest ways in which physical geography affects the routes, flows, and destinations of migrations (e.g., rivers channeling migrating people along valleys, mountains acting as barriers, mountain passes acting as funnels, long distances impeding the flow of information about destinations)

By the end of the fourth grade, the student knows and understands:

1. How the characteristics of culture affect the ways in which people live

2. How patterns of culture vary across Earth’s surface

3. how cultures change

Therefore, the student is able to:

Identify the components of culture (e.g., language, social organization, beliefs and customs, forms of shelter, economic activities, education systems) and write a brief description of the student’s culture, including at least one statement about each component

Distinguish between the ways of life of different people living in the same region (e.g., the cultural differences between Native Americans and Europeans living along the eastern seaboard in the 17th century or among Sikhs, Hindus, and Muslims living in India today)

Use components of culture to compare how children live in different regions(e.g., similarities and differences in terms of environment and resources, technology, food, shelter, social organization, beliefs and customs, schooling, what girls and boys are allowed to do)

Write an account, using thematic maps, briefly describing the world’s culture regions (e.g., ethnic origin, language, religion, political systems, food preferences)

Prepare a visual display featuring graphs, maps, and pictures to compare the way in which people earn a living or support themselves in different regions of the world (e.g., by subsistence farming versus wage-earning in Mexico or ranching in Central America versus ranching in the united States)

Understand how cultures differ in their use of similar environments and resources by comparing one culture with another (e.g., compare how people live in Phoenix, Arizona, with how people live in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia)

Use interviews with parents and grandparents to understand cultural change (e.g., how the role of women in society has changed and how that has affected life in the United States and other regions of the world; how radio and then television changed leisure activities in the United States)

Use a variety of instructional materials to describe the current and former types of work done by women I developed and developing countries and then suggest reasons for any changes (e.g., changes in the role of women in providing food in sub-Saharan Africa and in the United States)

Use historical data, primary and secondary documents, illustrations, and other sources of information to describe changes in a cultural characteristic (e.g., the role of children in society, clothing styles, modes of transportation, food preferences, types of housing, attitudes toward the environment and resources)

1. The location and spatial distribution of economic activities

2. The factors that influence the location and spatial distribution of economic activities

3. The transportation and communication networks used in daily life

Describe and compare the ways in which people satisfy their basic needs and wants through the production of goods and services in different regions of the world (e.g., growing food versus shopping for food in a developing and developed society and economic activities in a rural region versus those of an urban region in the same US state)

Use a map to show economic links between regions and write a general account of how trade affects the way people earn their living in each region (e.g., the flow of fuels from Southwest Asia to industrialized, energy-poor regions of the world; the flow of electronic goods from pacific rim nations to the United States)

Describe how people in different places earn a living, by creating a map to show the places producing food, clothing, and household items and the places of origin for the raw materials used to make those goods

Classify land in a community by types of economic activity and prepare a ma showing the different uses (e.g., industrial, recreational, commercial, residential)

Use maps to understand the patterns of economic activity in an urban area and suggest reasons for the patterns (e.g., central business districts, industrial areas, shopping malls, places for entertainment and recreation, government service centers)

Locate economic activities that use natural resources in the local region, state, and nation (e.g., agriculture, mining, fishing, forestry) and describe the importance of the activities to these areas

Use a phone book and map of the local community to locate clusters of related businesses or other economic activities and then suggest why they are located where they are (e.g., medical supply and uniform stores, laboratories, and doctors’ offices near a hospital; warehouses and industries near major transportation routes; clusters of car dealerships on major highways; fast-food restaurants in highly accessible locations close to population concentrations)

Prepare a list of consumer products (e.g.,., soft drinks, bread, compact discs, baseball bats), identify the raw materials and manufacturing the processing needed to produce each one, and decide whether the products are made close to the sources of their raw materials or close to the consumers who buy them

List agricultural products produced in the student’s region, identify where they are processed, and map how they are distributed

Compare the importance of automobile transportation in the United states, relative to other countries, by preparing graphs and maps that show the number of automobiles per capita in countries in different parts of the world

List and describe the advantages and disadvantages of different modes of transportation for specific products and purposes (e.., barges and train for bulky heavy items; airplanes for high-cost perishables; pipelines for liquids and gases; bicycles, light-rail systems, and cars for urban commuting)

Prepare a time line and maps showing how transportation and communication have changed and have affected trade and economic activities (e.g., regions can specialize economically’ with improved roads and refrigerated trucking, more fresh fruits and vegetables are available out of season; regional, national, and global markets expand as transportation and communication systems improve)

1. The types and spatial patterns of settlement

2. The factors that affect where people settle

3. How spatial patterns of human settlement change

` 4. The spatial characteristics of cities

Prepare written comparisons of past and present types of settlements in the US and other countries (e.g., describe the sequence of settlement formation and growth from a hamlet or a village, town, and city)

Compare housing and land use in urban and suburban areas, noting similarities and differences (e.g., where people live, where services are provided, where product are made, types of housing, yard size, population density, transportation facilities, presence of infrastructure elements such as sidewalks and streetlights)

Read narratives and poems about a type of community unlike that of the student (e.g., an urban community if the student lives in a rural area) and then summarize the similarities and differences in a chart

Use maps to identify clusters of dense settlement and relate them to reasons for settlement(e.g., fertile soil, good transportation, and availability of water in the Ganges River Valley and the availability of coal, iron, and other natural resources and river transportation in the Ruhr)

Read accounts by past and present settlers in different regions of the US. to explain why people have chosen to settle and live in those places (e.g.,., job opportunities, available land, climate)

Compare two or more regions to suggest probable reasons for similarities and differences in population size and density (e.g., length of settlement, environment and resources, cultural traditions, historic events, accessibility)

Analyze the similarities and differences among the world’ culture hearths (culture groups’ places of origin) and suggest why humans settled in those places and why these settlements persist today (e.g.,., as centers of innovation and cultural, social, economic, and political development that attract people from other places)

Describe the settlement patterns that characterize the development of the student’s local community or state (e.g., from the movement of people into an area previously unoccupied, to the spread of settlements to fill the area, to hamlet and village formation, to competition among villages for economic dominance and growth; from a small number of dispersed settlers with few services to concentrations of settlers in a village, town, or city with many more services and then to the modern pattern of suburbanization and decentralization)

Trace the reasons for the growth and decline of settlements (e.g., boomtowns to ghost towns in mining areas; the rise or decline of towns linked or not linked by highways or railroads; the history of company or single-industry towns in periods of prosperity or recession)

maps and other graphics to locate major cities in North America and explain the processes that have caused them to grow (e.g., location along transportation routes, availability of resources that have attracted settlers and economic activities, continued access to other cities and resources)

Describe changes in cities in the US over time using maps, pictures, statistics, and personal recollections (e.g., the movement of industry from down town to the edge of cities; suburban growth; changes in the shapes of urban areas)

Use telephone books from towns, small cities, and large cities to identify and describe the differences between settlements of different sizes (e.g., differences in the availability of goods and services, cultural and recreational opportunities, and specialized medical services)

1. The types of territorial units

2. The extent and characteristics of political, social, and economic units at different scales (local to global)

3. how people divide Earth’s surface

4. How cooperation and conflict affect places in the local community

Use layers of colored paper, transparencies, and other graphics to identify political units at different scales, local to global (e.g., precinct, census district, school attendance zone, township, metropolitan area, county, state, and nation)

Prepare a chart, diagram, or map that lists public services offered to citizens by government agencies and identifies the area served by each (e.g., the hierarchy of police protection from local station to county sheriff to state police department to national agency; the hierarchy of justice involving municipal courts, county courts, state courts, and federal district courts)

Prepare an atlas that shows a variety of territorial units (e.g., county maps of the state; state maps of the US. and Mexico; province maps of Canada country maps of North and South America; world maps of regional trade groups, countries linked in cooperative relationships [e.g., the European union])

Describe the common characteristics of political regions (e.g., boundaries, laws, functions, degree of autonomy, jurisdictional span)

Prepare a chart that compares the size and population of ten large countries and ten small countries

Describe the functions of political units (e.g., law-making, law enforcement, provision of services, powers of taxation) and how they differ on the basis of scale (e.g., municipality, county, state, country)

Identify a recent change in the political or economic system of a country (e.g., breakup of former Czechoslovakia, civil war in former Yugoslavia, end of apartheid in South Africa) and suggest reasons for the change (e.g., ethnic or national differences, competition for political control, economic inequalities)

Prepare a series of maps to illustrate how the US expanded its territory to reach its current shape and size

Research, write, and illustrate a geographic history of a state that focuses on how the state got its present boundaries

Identify a local issue (in the student’s community) that has been a point of conflict, analyze the situation, and find ways in which it illustrates the idea of cooperation and conflict

Use events in the local community or in communities in other regions to write stories about ways in which people solve problems by cooperating (e.g., working in groups to pick up trash along a road, participating in a neighborhood crime-watch group, or participating in community house-building projects)

Use current events to map incidents of cooperation and conflict between countries