Thursday, May 5, 2011

World Water Issues Presentation

VERY brief overview of world water issues.

You will present a powerpoint presentation explaining your selected world water issue.
You will also submit handwritten notes and answers to research questions.

Presentation due date: May 16

You will be graded on the following criteria:

  • CONTENT - 
    • How informative is your presentation? 
    • How well do you explain the issue so that your classmates can understand the issue?
    • How well can student answer questions about the issue?
  • FORMAT
    • Is your presentation visually appealing and does it help increase understanding of the issue?
    • Are all images, maps, and information properly credited with sources?
(Notes will be submitted and graded on the level and extent of research done on the issue.)

The final exam will contain questions drawn from each student's presentation.






How much water does it take to make your food?

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Earthquakes and Tsunamis - Landforms Unit / Natural Hazards Unit

Creating CASE STUDIES to understand plate tectonics and natural hazards:

1. What causes earthquakes?
Interactive animation for earthquakes

2. What causes tsunamis? Does every earthquake cause a tsunami?

3. What sort of damage is caused by earthquakes? Compare and contrast damage caused by four earthquakes.

4. What sort of damage is caused by tsunamis? Compare and contrast damage caused by the two tsunamis.

5. How does geographic location affect natural disasters (especially earthquakes and tsunamis)? What tectonic factors caused these earthquakes to occur? What type of boundaries and what is happening there?
  • Haiti (2010)
  • Japan (2011)
  • Indonesia (2004)
  • Chile (2010)
Interactive Map of Plate Boundaries

6. Compare and contrast the epicenter, depth, magnitude of the following earthquakes.

7. How does level of development affect the level of natural hazard?
  • Haiti (2010)
  • Japan (2011)
  • Indonesia (2004)
  • Chile (2010)
Where are the most deadly earthquakes? What is similar about the countries where the most deaths occur?


BONUS:
Iceland volcano is another natural disaster related to plate tectonics. Answer questions 3, 5, and 7 regarding volcanoes and find 2 interactive websites that allow students to understand volcanoes (especially Iceland volcano) better.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

EARTHQUAKE!! and online textbook resources

Click here to give your personal experience about the earthquake this morning.
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/dyfi/events/us/b0001gd1/us/form.en.disabled.html

Click here to look at maps of the earthquake.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/usb0001gd1.php

Click here to watch the textbook resources for earth's structure and rock cycle.
http://www.classzone.com/books/earth_science/terc/navigation/home.cfm

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Contour Map

Please read this for further information about drawing contour lines on your map. http://www.ehow.com/about_5461080_rules-contour-lines.html

























Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Three Themes of Geography



Today we went over class expectations and course outline. Then we began to look at the five themes of geography. We discussed LOCATION (absolute and relative), PLACE (physical and human characteristics), and HUMAN-ENVIRONMENT INTERACTION (how humans depend on, adapt to, and modify the environment).

Next class period we will look at MOVEMENT and REGIONS.

Homework:
Find an article in a newspaper (either a paper newspaper or an online newspaper) that interests you.
Read the article.
Write a paragraph relating the article to at least two themes of geography.

You may submit electronically by sharing your document with savage.catherine@gmail.com or you may type it and print it, or you may neatly handwrite the paragraph.

IMPORTANT: Include the news source, the title of the article, the author, and the date the article was written.

Monday, January 10, 2011

Getting Google Docs Setup (2 things to do)

If you have not done this already, create a Word document on whatever computer you usually use to do your schoolwork (home computer, laptop, school computer lab).

On the document, please write "This is a word document that I uploaded to Google Docs." 

You don't need to write anything else on the document.

Save the document as "'your name' word document".

Then log in to your Google account and go to Google Docs.

Upload the document that you saved on your computer.

Share it with this email - savage.catherine@gmail.com
(I made a mistake and I thought that my two accounts would go to the same google docs but they don't so please type in this new email address :-)

_______________________________________________

Then, check your google docs and see if you received a document titled "Materials List for Physical Geography".

If you don't see it in your Google Docs, then please view the document  by clicking HERE.

Let me know if you did not receive the document in your Google Docs.

Sunday, January 9, 2011