District 11 Educational Support Services
Social Studies


Geography, People & Places 1: Course Overview  

Course Number: SS.GEOPPL1

 
Overview
This course will help the student to understand the influences of geography on man. Focus is on learning the basic skills and concepts of geography. Content is drawn from both physical and human geography. Some high schools choose to offer this as a one semester course, as presented here. Others choose to offer two semesters of Geography, with the second semester as Course Number: SS.ESLGEO2. If offered for a full year, the first semester is physical geography, as shown in Quarter 1, and the second semester is human geography, as shown in quarter 2. Both are studied in much greater depth over the course of a year than would be possible in a semester.

Prerequisite: Teacher/Counselor Recommendation
Course Length: 2   Period Length: 1   Grade Level:  9-12  Credit per Semester: 1
Additional Credit Information: Credit Per Semester: 1.0 (Social Studies, Humanities or Elective)

For Teachers
Quarter 1  2
Quarter 3  4
Prerequisite
Next Course

Standards

Enduring Understandings - important ideas that students should carry with them years beyond the instruction received this year.

  • Maps, charts, and graphs are used to acquire, process and report information about people, places and environments.
  • Human and physical characteristics define regions.
  • Physical processes shape the earth's surface and have effects on people's lives
  • Human migration impacts cultural development of societies.
  • Human and physical systems interact and impact one another. 
  • Changes that occur in the meaning, use, location, distribution, and importance of resources affect human and physical systems
  • Understanding the past, present and future requires knowledge of people, places, and environments.

Essential Questions - most important “big picture” questions students should be able to answer after completing learning activities.

  •  Why study Geography?
  •  Where, why there? Why should we care?
  •  How, and why, do people define regions?
  •  What careers are based on a knowledge of geography?
  •  How do physical processes shape the earth’s surface?
  •  What are the positive and negative effects of physical processes on people’s lives?
  •  How do global concepts impact people’s lives?
  •  What are the physical characteristics that give a place meaning?
  •  What are the human characteristics that give a place meaning?
  •  Why do people move?
  •  How do people modify/adapt and/or depend upon the physical environment?
  •  How has technology expanded human capacity to modify the environment?

  •  How do societies value and use Earth’s natural resource?

  •  Why are ecosystems important in understanding the environment? [extended]


Standards and Benchmarks
Standard
G1:  Students know how to use and construct maps, globes, and other geographic tools to locate and derive information about people, places, and environments.  
Benchmark A:
 Students know how to use maps, globes, and other geographic tools to acquire, process, and report information from a spatial perspective.
Benchmark B:
Students develop knowledge of Earth to locate people, places, and environments.
Benchmark C:
Students know how to analyze the dynamic spatial organization of people, places and environments.
Standard G2: Students know the physical and human characteristics of places, and use this knowledge to define and study regions and their patterns of change.
Benchmark A: Students know the physical and human characteristics of places.
Benchmark B: Students know how and why people define regions.
Benchmark C: Students know how culture and experience influence people’s perceptions of places and regions.

Standard
G3: Students understand how physical processes shape Earth’s surface patterns and systems.
Benchmark A: Students know the physical processes that shape Earth’s surface patterns.
Benchmark B: Students know the characteristics and distributions of physical systems of land, air, water, plants, and animals.
Standard G4: Students understand how economic, political, cultural and social processes interact to shape patterns of human populations, interdependence, cooperation, and conflict.
Benchmark A: Students understand how economic, political, cultural and social processes interact to shape patterns of human populations, interdependence, cooperation, and conflict.
Benchmark B: Students know the nature and spatial distribution of cultural patterns.
Benchmark C: Students know the patterns and networks of economic interdependence.
Benchmark D:
Students know the processes, patterns, and functions and human settlement.
Benchmark E: Students know how cooperation and conflict among people influence the division and control of Earth’s surface.
Standard G5: Students understand the effects of interactions between human and physical systems and 
changes in meaning, use, distribution, and importance of resources.
Benchmark A: Students know how human actions modify the physical environment.
Benchmark B:
 Students know how physical systems affect human systems.
Benchmark C: Students know the changes that occur in the meaning, use, location, distribution, and importance of resources.
Standard G6: Students apply knowledge of people, places, and environments to understand the past and present and to plan for the future.
Benchmark A:
Students know how to apply geography to understand the past.
Benchmark B: Students know how to apply geography to understand the present and plan for the future. 

Sample Units

District 11 Diamond Units/Lessons Overview - includes information about the purpose, goals and structure of these sample instructional units:

  • Unit 1: Locations, Regions and Applications

  • Unit 2: Physical Processes and Applications

  • Unit 3: Human Systems and Applications

  • Unit 4: Environment and Society:  Interactions and Applications

Resources

Parent Resources

 

Teacher Resources


Gapminder 2005 - provides data on population growth, density and other data for many countries of the world.


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