Unit 1 Foundations of World Geography

Unit 1 – Foundations of World Geography

The purpose of the first two Parts is to establish a common experience with geographic inquiry at two very different scales. The first activity involves gathering information from a map in order to make a community-scale decision about where to locate a settlement. The second activity is a global-scale investigation of the geographic pattern of ancient cities. These two investigations are linked by an important principle: global patterns of population are the consequence of many people making personal decisions about where to live. The third and fourth Parts are like metacognition about the first two investigations – thinking about the use of geographic themes to guide inquiry, and about the ways in which human brains are structured to organize geographic information. These presentations and handouts are important teacher background – teachers should review them and think about how to introduce these ideas into their classes; we do not suggest using all of these presentations and handouts in 6th grade!