In this course you learn to interpret sets of symbols, colors, lines, and patterns to reveal the information each cartographer encodes in a map. Special emphasis is given to topographic maps where lines are used to turn flat sheets into three-dimensional landscapes. There is no truth to the rumor that the mid-term consists of refolding a highway map. Cultural Geography Groups of individuals share certain behaviors, attitudes, technologies and beliefs that form the basis of culture. In this course students study the distribution of various culture traits and attempt to discover where they originated and how and why they spread to other parts of the world.
Weather impacts our lives on a daily basis.
We make short-term decisions about clothing, recreation, travel and even school based on temperatures, wind and precipitation. Climate is the long-term record of weather. Climate also affects human decisions, influences crop selection, house design and even industrial site selection. In this course students will learn why each weather element exists, how each is distributed on the planet and how these individual elements combine over time to form climate regions. Economic Geography seeks to answer these and similar questions using basic location theory and geopolitical concepts.