MontbelloHigh School

Geography I Course Syllabus

Mr. Sawyer

Fall Semester 2009

Instructor’s Available Hours: Daily: 3:45-4:15 PM

Appointments for students and parents can also be made on an individual basis.

Phone: (720) 423-5853 Room 106

Email:

Course Description: Students will study world geography through the exploration of regional case studies. Students will learn and should be able to describe, explain, and apply the elements of physical, cultural, political, economic, and local issues and perspectives to the five themes of geography. Students will study the global patterns of landform, climate, demographic patterns of people (population and population movement), transportation, communication, economic linkages and cultural diffusion and differences.

Classroom Rules & Behavior Expectations: My goal for this class is for each student to master the material presented in the course. People learn most effectively in a structured environment where they feel comfortable and respected. Your role in helping to create this atmosphere includes the following three rules:

  1. Respect yourself, your classmates, your teacher, and school property at all times.
  • Raise your hand before speaking.
  • Do not disrupt the learning of others.
  • Don’t shout or argue, or defy the teacher.
  • Don’t throw or damage anything.
  • No physical contact.
  • No profanity.
  1. Bring your best effort to class each day.
  2. Be seated and working on your bell work when the bell rings. Read the assignment on the board and begin working.
  3. Bring all materials you will need.
  4. Bring your planner to class every day and record your assignments before leaving class.
  5. Complete each assignment to the best of your ability. Unacceptable work will have to be done again.
  6. Follow the rules and regulations of MontbelloHigh School.
  7. Food, drinks, and gum belong outside of the classroom.
  8. Students are to wear an identification tag at all times.
  9. No electronic devices are allowed in class including: Cellular phones, CD players, Pagers, Games, etc.
  10. Dress according to the guidelines outlined in the Montbello student handbook. Students not in uniform will not be allowed into class.
  11. Know and follow the “Warrior Expectations”

Consequences: Interference in any way with a public school learning environment is a serious offense. The usual consequence for a disruption is a 20-minute in-class after-school detention. This time will be spent working on geography! The next step after detention would be a referral and the Montbello Discipline ladder as explained in the Montbello Handbook.

Materials and Supplies Needed:

  1. Spiral notebook for bell work, journals, CSAP practice, class notes etc.
  2. Colored pencils and/or markers. (optional but highly recommended)
  3. Geography Alive! textbook and other assigned reading materials
  4. Geography Alive! workbook
  5. Daily planner for recording homework assignments.
  6. Pens and Pencils
  7. Your student ID.

Grading Scale:

90%-100% A

80%-89% B

70%-79% C

60%-69% D

0%-59% F

Grading Policy: Your grade will be a cumulative grade, based on assignments, quizzes, and tests. Assignments include in-class work, homework, and projects.

Homework

/ Students can expect at least some homework for each class meeting. It should be understood that work not completed in class is to be done for homework.

Notebook

Workbook / Includes bellwork, notes, and in-class assignments.
The workbook, or “ISN” will be used for vocabulary (“Geoterms”) reading notes and processing from the geography text book.

Quizzes

/ Quizzes will be given approximately once a week.

Tests

Final / Tests will be given after each major unit. Students should be present on the day of a test or make arrangements to take the test early if they know they will be absent. Make-up tests will be given after school within one week of the test date. A student who does not take a make-up test within one week will receive a 0 on the test.
A final exam at the end of the semester will be 10% of the total grade

Homework: Homework gives you an opportunity to work on your own without time constraints or distractions. Your success in completing homework assignments promptly will add to your success in the classroom. Homework will be collected at the beginning of the period. Late homework will carry a 20% grade deduction

Make-up Work: All work must be completed, regardless of an absence. Students who are absent from class have a responsibility to make-up the work they miss within two school days. Students needing to make-up work should seeor call Mr. Sawyer after school between 3:45 and 4:15. Late work will be accepted with a 20% grade deduction.

Course Outline

Semester 1

Essential Question: How does the interdependence between humans and physical systems affect Earth and its people?

Unit 1 : Course Introduction, Geographic Perspective

Essential Question: How do (spatial) perspectives help us analyze people, places, and the environment?

 Rules, expectations, and routines

 Demonstrate understanding of the concept of scale

 Create and interpret various thematic maps

 Create and interpret various graphs, tables, and charts

 Properly utilize various special purpose maps

 Define and use key geographic terms such as: latitude/longitude, location, absolute location, relative location, distortion, map projection

 Locate physical and human features on maps

 Use map components (DOGSTAILS)

 Compare and contrast different kinds of geographic tools

 Draw inferences from geographic data

 Pre-assessment of skills.

Unit 2: Earth's Impact on Humans

Essential Question: How does Earth impact humans, and how can they respond?

 Define atmosphere, biosphere, lithosphere, and hydrosphere

 Understand processes that build up and wear down the Earth

 Identify human and physical characteristics of places

 Understand climatic processes

 Analyze geographic information to understand physical processes

 Describe the impact of humans on physical systems

 Describe the impact of physical processes on human activity

Unit 3: Humans' Impact on Earth

Essential Question: How do humans impact Earth? What is humans' responsibility to Earth?

 Define conservation, preservation, and sustainability

 Evaluate the human use of various resources

 Explain how individual and collective actions directly impact the environment

 Understand there are ways to lessen the impact of humans on the environment

 Explain the effects of transboundary pollution

Unit 4: Urbanization

Essential Question: Are urbanization and its effects good or bad?  Explain the causes and consequences of spatial inequality in urban areas

 Compare and contrast people's perception of place

 Create and evaluate choropleth maps

 Read, analyze, and evaluate maps, tables, graphs, and charts showing data on urbanization

 Draw inferences from data about urban patterns

 Explain the importance of urban planning

Semester 2

Essential Question: How does increasing globalization influence and affect interactions of people on Earth?

Unit 5: Global Population

Essential Question: How can we plan for challenges human populations face?

 Read and interpret population data and use it to plan for the future

 Identify the distribution of population

 Analyze consumption patterns

 Identify differences between developed and developing countries

 Create, read, and interpret population pyramids

 Explain why people live where they live

Unit 6: Cultural Globalization

Essential Question: Can cultures survive globalization?

 Define the geographic characteristics of culture and culture regions

 Define and explain the relationship between culture and globalization

 Compare and contrast components of culture

 Describe the processes of cultural diffusion

 Read, analyze, and evaluate geographic tools related to culture and culture regions

Unit 7: Political Globalization

Essential Question: Why can't we all just get along?

 Evaluate the role of nations, states, and nation-states in conflict and cooperation

 Identify territorial, ethnic, religious, and resource competition as sources of conflict

 Understand why political borders change

 Explain how conflict in one place can affect people in other places

 Read, analyze, and evaluate geographic tools related to conflict and cooperation

 Draw inferences from data related to conflict and cooperation

 Examine the pros and cons of supra-nationalism

Unit 8: Economic Globalization

Essential Question: Does interdependence create winners and losers in economic globalization?

 Evaluate the role of comparative advantage in the global economy

 Define and explain the role of export zones

 Differentiate between free and restricted trade

 Explain how the role of major supra-national trade agreements and organizations affect the global economy

 Explain economic interdependence and the global market place

 Read, analyze, and evaluate geographic tools related to economic globalization

 Draw inferences from data related to economic globalization

 Explain how economic globalization affects everyday Americans

 Explain the role of technology in increasing interdependence

Course Outline:

Weeks1-2: Course Introduction, The tools of Geography

  • Rules, expectations, and routines
  • Review of general themes, and tools of geography
  • Pre-assessment of skills.
  • Essential Question, “How do Geographers show information on maps?”

Weeks3-4:Seeing the World like a Geographer

  • Key Geographic terms
  • Map terminology
  • Analyze six types of thematic maps

Essential Question, “Why do Geographers use a variety of maps to represent the World?”

Weeks5-6: Physical Processes at Work: Russia’s Varied Landscape

  • Key Geographic Terms
  • Explain how physical processes such as tectonic movement, volcanic activity, erosion, and glaciation can shape the landscape
  • Explain the relationship between tectonic movement and volcanic activity around the globe
  • Essential Question, “How do physical processes shape Earth’s landscape”?

Weeks7-8: Dealing with extreme weather: Hurricanes in the Caribbean

  • Key Geographic terms
  • Describe the weather conditions that cause a hurricane to form and strengthen
  • Analyze the relationship between El Niño and extreme weather around the world
  • Essential Question, “What causes extreme weather and how do people deal with it?”

Weeks9-10:Urban Sprawl in North America: Where will it end?

  • Key Geographic terms
  • Analyze the causes of, consequences of, and various solutions to urban sprawl.
  • Analyze the implications of global urban patterns and international solutions to sprawl.
  • Essential Question, “How does urban sprawl affect people and the planet?”

Weeks 11-12:Spatial Inequality in Mexico City: From cardboard to castles

  • Key Geographic terms
  • Explain how special inequality affects people living in Mexico City
  • Examine standard of living around the world to understand that special inequality exists on a global scale
  • Essential Question, “Why does spatial inequality exist in urban areas?”

Weeks13-14:Migration to the United States: The impact on people and places

  • Key Geographic terms
  • Understand the primary reasons people emigrate from their country of birth and immigrate to the United States
  • Identify key ways in which migration impacts the United States, immigrants, and the countries left behind
  • Essential Question, “How does migration affect the lives of people and the character of places?”

Weeks 15-16: Invisible Borders: Transboundary pollution in Europe

  • Key Geographic terms
  • Understand the causes, locations, and impact of radioactive pollution, acid rain, and industrial water pollution in Europe
  • Investigate the sources and spread of acid rain worldwide
  • Essential Question, “How can one country’s pollution become another county’s problem?”

Weeks 17-18: The Aral Sea: Central Asia’s shrinking water source

  • Key Geographic terms
  • Examine hoe the shrinking of the Aral Sea has affected people in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan
  • Investigate irrigation in other parts of the world and its effects on people in those areas

Essential Question, “How are humans affected by changes they make to their physical environment?”

Colorado Department of Education Standards for Geography:

  1. Students know how to construct maps, globes, and other geographic tools to locate and derive information about people, places, and environments.
  2. Students know the physical and human characteristics of places, and use this knowledge to define and study regions and their patterns of change.
  3. Students understand how physical processes shape the Earth’s surface patterns and systems.
  4. Students understand how economic, political, cultural, and social processes interact to shape patterns of human populations, interdependence, cooperation and conflict.
  5. Students understand the effects of interactions between human and physical systems and the changes in meaning, use, distribution, and importance of resources.
  6. Students apply knowledge of people, places, and environments to understand the past and present and to plan for the future.
  7. Students apply the process of geographic inquiry examining issues by using geographic skills and appropriate technologies to ask and answer geographic questions

PLEASE SIGN AND RETURN THIS PORTION

Student:

I ______(print) have read the course syllabus.

______(Signature)______(date)

Parent or Guardian:

I ______(print) have read the course syllabus.

I understand that a geography textbook will be assigned that ______(student) will be responsible for returning in the condition in which it was received. I also understand that I will be charged a fee of $85 if the book is lost or damaged.

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I understand that I will be assigned a geography textbook that I will be responsible for returning in the condition in which it was received. I also understand that I will be charged a fee of $85 if my book is lost or damaged.

Signature)______(date)

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