Nicks Geographic Angle

Today in class we discussed and defined lines of latitude and longitude. Shortly after that, we touched upon the subject of minutes and seconds on a geographic scale. Lets first talk shortly about what we learned about regarding minutes and seconds in terms of degree measurements.  Notice how above is a complete circle, 360°,  as if you were looking at our earth from one angle.  Now take that 360° and divide it by 360, hopefully, you got 1°.  Within that 1° in order to better pinpoint a location, minutes and seconds can be used. Just as minutes and seconds in time, there are 60 minutes which make up 1° and within each minute contains 60 seconds; totaling to 3,600 seconds in a degree.  So now let's discuss our other point in class, latitude, and longitude. We'll start with defining each.  Latitude- Sometimes known as parallels, latitude is used to measure north and south degrees.  The common known Equator line is considered a lin...

After a quick recap of what was yesterdays key question, "How geographers describe where things are located", we began to focus on Situation .  As defined in class, Situation is "A valuable way to indicate location, for two reasons:" 1. Situation is what we can use to find the location of an unfamiliar place by comparing its location to other known locations.  Figure 1 An example of this use of Situation would be to find John Carroll by referring to it as "east of Rockfield Park". We can use this to tell someone who is familiar with the location of one spot (Rockfield Park) to find the location of another point (Such as John Carroll). See Figure 1 for a visual representation. 2. Situation can help us to better understand the importance of a location. As reviewed in class, the location of a certain settlement can have a large impact on its economy.  Figure 2 (San Fransisco Port) An example of this use of Situation woul...

Today in class we reviewed the benefits that Geographic Grids provide to Geographers attempting to locate something. Further, we went over what parts of a Geographic Grid enable Geographers to do so, such as Latitude and Longitude. Latitude- Lines running horizontally to the Equator (0 ° ), run in an east-west direction, also referred to as Parallels. Longitude- Lines running vertically to the Prime Meridian (0 ° ), run in a north-south direction, also referred to as Meridians.  The Geographic Grid  A system in which imaginary arcs are drawn vertically and horizontally creating a grid which allows for easy pinpoint locating of specific places,  Notice: Using degree markings around the grid, Geographers are able to find an X and a Y (Coordinates) location of a point.  Source: Mr. Fendryks Website  Using Latitude, we are able to find four other significant Parallels other than the Equator. Those being: Arctic Circle 66° 34′ (...

Throughout today's lesson we were able to grasp a better understanding of how scale effects the accuracy of maps we see on a day to day basis. In order to identify the scale of a map, geographers most commonly use a ratio such as this map does below: Notice: Although it may not be very accurate, this scale offers a sample of what other maps do in a massive scale.  The map shown above uses the scale to represent that every inch on this map equals 1.576 miles on Earths surface.  The scale above represents a measurement on the actual distance on the map whereas other ratios explain the maps scale in relativity to a planetary size or even an areas true size. This is seen in our example below: Notice: This map's scale shows a planetary size (Shown as 20,000,000) compared to the map's size (Represented by 1). We can dissect this ratio and understand that a distance/space marked on this map is 20,000,000 times that on Earth.  To conclude our lesson today...

As instructed in school, I will locate all the countries in the western hemisphere given the appropriate maps. Being able to locate a given country within a physical map or maybe a thematic map that doesn't list the countries is vital to Human Geography because it allows the topographer to configure a more educated mental map in the future. I will begin listing countries within the North American and Central American Countries: North America:  1:  Canada                           11. Cuba 2: United States                  12. Jamaica  3. Mexico                           13. Haiti  4. Guatemala                      14. Dominican Republic  5. Belize  6. El Salvador 7. Honduras 8. Nicaragua  ...

Today in Human Geography we worked to create a proper definition for Mental Maps. Mental Maps are defined as one person's perception of an area in which they often interact with. What we came up with informed us that we may not know nearly as much as we think about the geography of our earth; for instance when we sketched a world map using our mental knowledge. At the bottom of the page.   The Mental Map we drew was not at all anything to brag about, I attribute this to the lack of detail we store in our mind, rather we just store the general shapes of the continents. As far as continents go, I pondered why the maps we see today haven't been oriented at another angle.  I wondered why world maps aren't oriented like this: Answer: Most Orignal Topographers marked specific points in which we used as a universal system to mapping our world. These include the Prime Meridian, the Equator, etc. In the world of Geography, we call our daily ritual or our Daily Clyc...

For centuries, civilizations have tried to accurately map our Earth on a 2 dimensional map, there is one issue with that, it's not possible because of planets sphere-like form. Cartography, the study of map making not only enables us to learn more about maps but just like Thematic Maps, we can make connections with how maps have been made.     For instance the map listed bellow which we went over in class: World Map by Eratosthenes (195 BC)   Notice: Not too much of Russia had been explored due to the large mountain range in which prevented explorers from mapping/voyaging that general continent. Now lets jump to 1571 AD Notice: There were large revisions on our world map over 1700 years later that still aren't nearly on par with what we have today.  With added technology we can now find the location of specific points in accuracy thought to never be possible. Today in class we also focused on locating these points with certain methods. The m...

Today we focused on the key question of what truly makes up Human Geography. It is incredible the depths you can go to while exploring each branch. First of all, Human Geography deals with the study of all aspects of life from the Environment all the way to the Economy of certain regions and countries. With that said, a point was made today that we can learn quite a lot by looking at thematic maps  which can chart anything about a general area such as it's average citizen energy use or maybe their calorie intake per day. By comparing certain areas you can sometimes see substantial differences which can assist in researching geographic issues such as an influx of population or even a lack of exercise. While thematic maps can be useful for gathering data, they may not give you the landscape or the climate of a general area as a Physical Map  would. Physical Maps are great for researching and discovering parts of either your region or world that you didn't know about. Last but...