Geog 200B Notes for Week One
WHAT IS RESEARCH?
Research means a systematic investigation, including research development,
testing and evaluation, designed to develop or
contribute to generalizable knowledge.
gathering together of information vs. distilling vs. creating
WHAT IS GEOGRAPHY?
- The study of natural and human constructed phenomena relative to a
spatial dimension.
- "What Geography is about is the earth. Throughout the two thousand
years it has existed as a distinct intellectual enterprise, Geography has
always focused on the earth as created by nature and as modified by human
action as abiding and distinctive objects of study." Geography's Inner
Worlds (1992), by Ronald F. Abler, Melvin G. Marcus, and Judy M. Olsen
See: http://www.geocities.com/caseallen/definition.html
- The art of Biography
Is different from Geography.
Geography is about maps,
But Biography is about chaps.
-Edmund Clerihew Bentley (1905) Biography for Beginners. - Geography
is that discipline consumed with defining itself.
- Geographers investigate the surface of the earth as the home of man.
The discipline of Geography is focused on
a broad range of man-and-environment interactions, and encourages a variety
of investigative approaches to
problem of the ecology of man. " (1966-67 UCSB General Catalog, Page 171)
GEOGRAPHIC TRADITIONS
Patterson
Spatial tradition
Area Studies tradition
Man-Land tradition
Earth Science tradition
FIVE THEMES OF GEOGRAPHY (See http://www2.una.edu/geography/statedepted/themes.html)
Location
Relative Location
Absolute Location
Place
Human Characteristics
Physical Characteristics
Human-Environmental Interactions
Humans adapt to the environment
Humans modify the environment
Humans depend on the environment
Movement
People
Goods
Ideas
Regions
Formal
Functional
Vernacular (perceptual)
GEOGRAPHY AT UCSB
A
time line
A history