Course Search Results

  • 3.00 Credits

    A comprehensive course of study of the physical and cultural geography of the African continent south of the Sahara Desert. Topics will include, but are not limited to: pre-colonial societies, slavery and colonialism, development issues, environmental problems, the geography of disease and health care, population, and current political geography issues.
  • 3.00 Credits

    A regional course emphasizing the economic problems of European nations, it affords an opportunity to study the geographic relationships underlying land utilization, boundary disputes, economic organization, and the dominant international relations of Europe.
  • 3.00 Credits

    The purpose of this course is to teach students how to think geographically about culture. This involves considering how people's actions through social, economic, and political processes create and transform places. Topics include, but are not limited to, geographies of population, migration, language, religion, ethnicity, politics, urbanization, agriculture, and development. Students will study how peoples' culture affects the world around them, and in turn, how it is affected by the cultures and environments that surround it.
  • 3.00 Credits

    Meteorology is the study which deals with the phenomena of the atmosphere. This includes not only the physics, chemistry, and dynamics of the atmosphere, but is extended to include many of the direct effects of the atmosphere upon the Earth's surface, the oceans, and life in general. Students will be given the opportunity to work with the basic instruments used in measuring atmospheric characteristics, learn how those characteristics are coded on weather maps, be presented with strategies to analyze the weather data, and learn the basics of forecasting the weather.
  • 3.00 Credits

    This course examines a wide variety of current environmental issues related to air, land and water resources. Emphasis is placed upon problems and practical solutions. Lectures are integrated with an extensive collection of audiovisual materials and World Wide Web sites.
  • 3.00 Credits

    The geography of natural hazards examines human landscapes, in areas prone to damaging environmental conditions, i.e., floods, droughts, earth-quakes, severe agricultural frosts, etc. Upon the identification of geographic areas where notable disasters have occurred, a study is made of (1) the individual and societal human responses and decisions, and (2) the resultant land use patterns which have evolved. The student will then examine and evaluate current plans and options designed to reduce future loss of life and property in hazard-prone regions.
  • 3.00 Credits

    The course will introduce the basic concepts and processes underlying the spatial distribution of economic activities. Natural resource distributions, population patterns and growth, and general development disparities will be examined. The evolution of different types of economic activities over time and space will be considered within the context of technological change, particularly in transportation and communications. Contrasts and comparisons will be made between urban and rural economic activities, and both inter-urban and intra-urban patterns in different regions of the world will be examined. Industrial location will be considered, ranging from the small firm to the multinational organization. International trade and factor movement and world trading patterns will be examined, as well as problems resulting from the globalization of economic activity.
  • 3.00 Credits

    Transportation and its role in the development of the economic and geographic landscape are analyzed at the national, regional and urban level. This will be accomplished by considering the questions of how, where and why movements occur through geographic space.
  • 3.00 Credits

    This course examines the complex array of economic, cultural, and political forces known as globalization. Topics will include the historical roots of globalization, as well as the positive and negative impacts of this diverse phenomenon on cultural, political, environmental, and economic geographies. Emphasis will be not only on the geographic effects that globalization has at the global level, but also the implications that it has for the geography of local places.
  • 3.00 Credits

    This course examines how maps locate, represent, summarize and communicate geographic information. Students develop an appreciation for using maps to learn about physical and cultural landscapes. Emphasis is on the interrelationships of map design, symbolization, and visual communication; functions of map projections; use of coordinate systems of maps; techniques for measuring and calculating scale, distance, direction, slope, elevation, area, volume, and object height from maps; and analysis of spatial trends and landscape change using maps. Students also use the magnetic compass with maps to solve problems of direction and scale. Map critiquing and writing assignments challenge them to evaluate potential misuse and misinterpretation of maps. Laboratory exercises involve analysis of topographic, road, weather, air photo, historical, land use, and zoning maps. This course provides a basis for advanced techniques courses in geography. It is also helpful to education majors concentrating in geography and majors in fields dealing with either physical or human-built environments.