Blog post 1 Meghan Kerr

Today, in class our key question was "What is Human Geography?" This question seems quite simple, it can be settled easily by one look in a dictionary or one google search. However, this question led to an interesting discovery for me. Before taking this class, I must admit that I wasn't very knowledgeable of geography, I didn't even know there were different types of it! However, this question and learning objective one (define geography, human geography, physical geography) allowed the class and I to know the different groups of geography and what exactly they were. For example, one of the groups of geography we learned about is human geography (obviously)  ,in the class discussion we found out that human geography has to do with the study of people, communities, cultures, economies, etc. basically human geography has to deal with humans and civilizations rather than physical areas or places on a map. An example of human geography could be someone studying towns in Africa to know more about the culture and how the communities work there. Another type of geography we learned is physical geography which has to do with the study of processes and patterns in the natural environment, basically physical geography has to do with natural processes. For example studying the way the atmosphere works is physical geography. Finally, these branches combined create overall geography which we learned was "the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of the Earth and planets." After completing learning objective one, we had learned a bunch of information about physical and human geography so it was easy to find the differences between them for learning objective two. For example, human geography is based on the built environment/ human made cultures etc. while physical geography is based off of natural features such as the hydrosphere, atmosphere, etc. Then, after we had found out what exactly geography was and how it branched out, we were able to find out how geographers map their studies out and visualize them. One of the maps they use for this purpose is a physical map, which is used to map out natural physical features of a place such as mountains or rivers. These maps could most likely be useful for physical geography since it studies natural features. Another type of map is a political map which shows how the country/state/city is organized. This map would be helpful if studying human geography because the borders are man made, having to do with communities and people. Finally, thematic maps are a type of map that is used, this map tells a story about the place on the map, relating to human and physical geography because the story could be about the natural land or the people who live there. As you can see, todays class period was very informational and interesting and allowed us to learn the basics about geography.