A student should understand the dynamic and interactive natural forces that shape the earth s environments. Physical systems and processes create natural landscapes that are significant to human activities. Within the natural landscapes are interdependent associations of plants and animals interacting with the atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, and cryosphere. An understanding of physical processes is indispensable in assessing world economic, political, and social conditions. The world s distribution of people is uneven and ever-changing.
Human needs create patterns of activity and movement locally and worldwide.
These patterns include human migrations, information flows, economic activities, settlement patterns, and forces of cooperation and conflict. Society A student should understand and be able to evaluate how humans and physical environments interact. Basic resources such as land, water, and air are components of the physical systems essential to human survival. Resource use varies from culture to culture. Many of the important issues facing societies involve the consequences of interactions between human and physical systems.