The 14 Regions of the United States

4. MEGALOPOLIS (study the map of MEGALOPOLIS on the WEB)

Read Chapter 4 in Birdsall and Florin (WEB)

Read the following on the CD:

REGIONS: New England (Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island – mostly Megalopolis)

(Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont – mostly By-passed East)

How is New England a region of contrasts?

REGIONS: Mid-Atlantic (New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland)

Why did the Middle Atlantic become so crowded?

Be able to find these regions of the Mid-Atlantic on a map:

Allegheny Plateau

Ridge and Valley

How is anthracite coal mining doing in Pennsylvania?

Piedmont

Catskill Mountains

Mohawk Valley

Finger Lakes

Adirondack Mountains

REGIONS: Virginia and the Carolinas (Virginia)

What are hearth or core areas?

Be able to find these regions on a map:

Cumberland Plateau

Ridge and Valley

Great Smoky Mountains

Piedmont

What state is the Research Triangle in?

Fall Zone

Coastal Plain

How is hog production doing?

Sea Islands

Outer Banks

Tidewater

TOURS: Lower East Side, New York City, walking tour

What are the six things that the value of land depends on?

After you understand the value of land in terms of dollars per acre, do you see a relationship between land value and the population density using that land?

What is an entrepot?

What economic class is "missing" from seaport cities; that is, there are fewer of this class than expected?

TOURS: The “News” – New Bedford, MA; Newport, RI; New Haven, CT

The economy of each of the cities in the "News" is related to the sea, but how are the three economies different?

TOURS: Tysons Corner, VA

Where is Tysons Corner (in terms of Dulles Airport, Washington DC and its Beltway)?

What is its economy based on?

Why is its land valuable (in terms of the six factors from the New York lower East Side exercise?

BIG JOBS: Education

(Note this exercise applies to North Carolina's Research Triangle, and other such areas too.)

Think of education as a business. Does some of this apply to OUZ on a smaller scale?

What are the two big schools looked at?

What is a common or commons?

BIG JOBS: Lobbyist

Lobbyist: some one who is paid to interact with elected officials and to try to get legislation passed or defeated.

What is a think tank?

CASE STUDY: Madison, New Jersey

What is a glacial moraine?

What was the sequence of transportation improvements?

What research and development(R&D)industry is big in New Jersey?

CASE STUDY: Manhattan

What factors caused New York City to grow so large? Over the long run, what does it mean if other cities have faster-growing companies?

What is an edge city?

CASE STUDY: Lowell, MA

Why was Lowell such a good site for mills?

What are some new uses for abandoned mills?

DIARIES: Lowell, MA Walking Tour

WEATHER: Middle Atlantic

Be able to define: cyclone; occluded front; polar front

LANDFORMS: Cape Cod, MA

What formed Cape Cod, Long Island and the islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket?

Be able to define moraine; outwash plain; kettle lake; glacial till

ACTIVITY V: Disease Clusters in Woburn, MA

Who was Dr. Snow?

What are brownfields?

MEGALOPOLIS web sites

5. THE MANUFACTURING CORE (study the map of THE MANUFACTURING CORE on the WEB)

Read Chapter 5 in Birdsall and Florin (WEB)

Read the following on the CD:

REGIONS: parts of New England (Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire)

REGIONS: Mid-Atlantic (New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland)

REGIONS: parts of the Corn Belt (Ohio, Indiana, Illinois)

What defines the Corn Belt? What states does it include?

What is happening to farm size in Illinois?

REGIONS: parts of Great Lakes region (southern Michigan and Wisconsin)

Where and what is the Driftless Area?

MAPS: Urban Models

What is a model?

Explain the Burgess Concentric Zone model of cities.

Explain the Hoyt Sector model of cities.

TOURS: Pulaski Road Bus Tour

Which ethnic groups in Chicago have grown since 1920? Which have declined?

CASE STUDY: Chicago’s West Side

What happened to Chicago's African American population from 1910 to 1990?

What is the "El?"

What happens to the relative location of a neighborhood as a city grows larger and grows outward?

LANDFORMS: Erie and Pennsylvania Canals

Why did the Pennsylvania Canal fail when the Erie Canal was so successful?

BIG JOBS: Autos

Why did automobile manufacturing cluster around Detroit?

What are "transplants?"

Where is the auto industry concentrated now?

CASE STUDY: Duquesne, PA

What are the two main resources needed to make steel?

What has happened to the amount of steel made in the US?

How has the location of steel production changed? What are the Big 3 producing states now?

ACTIVITY L: Iron/Steel factories

What were the three stages in the location of iron and steel manufacturing and why did location of manufacturing change?

Why was Birmingham steel at a disadvantage to Pittsburgh steel?

DIARIES: St. Louis

Where is St. Louis in terms of rivers?

ACTIVITY CX: Graphs of Immigration

What European groups attempted to settle North America?

Where did the different groups concentrate?

ACTIVITY HX Urban Land Value

What happens to land value as you get farther from the center of a city?

Explain why the value of a house or apartment is not the same as the value of the land it is on.

ACIVITY N: Professional Sports

What is a market area?

How can you draw market areas on a map?

ACTIVITY S Voting Districts

THE MANUFACTURING CORE web sites

6. THE BY-PASSED EAST AND 17. THE NORTHLANDS (Study the maps of THE BY-PASSED EAST and THE NORTHLANDS on the WEB site)

Read Chapters 6 and 17 in Birdsall and Florin

Read the following on the CD

REGIONS: part of New England (Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont)

REGIONS: part of Mid-Atlantic (northern Pennsylvania and New York)

REGIONS: part of Minnesota and Great Lakes (northern Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin)

BIG JOBS: Logging

What is a feller-buncher?

How is wood processed to be raw material for paper?

What is undergrowth?

What are some advantages of controlled burns and forest fires?

BIG JOBS: BWCA (Boundary Waters Canoe Area, MN)

What does BWCA stand for?

What is a portage?

What is ecotourism?

What is a location quotient (or an index of local importance)?

BIG JOBS: Ski Resort (Michigan and Colorado)

CASE STUDY F: Vershire, VT

What are the economic activities that brought waves of prosperity and economic growth to Vershire?

THE BY-PASSED EAST AND THE NORTHLANDS web sites

7. APPALACHIA AND THE OZARKS (study the map of APPALACHIA AND THE OZARKS on the web site)

Read Chapter 7 in Birdsall and Florin

Read the following on the CD

REGIONS: part of Mid-Atlantic (southern New York and central Pennsylvania)

REGIONS: West Virginia and western parts of Virginia and the Carolinas

REGIONS: Mid-South (Kentucky and Tennessee)

What is loess?

Be able to find these regions on a map:

Bluegrass Basin

Nashville Basin

Cumberland Plateau

Tennessee Valley

Great Smoky Mountains

REGIONS: southern parts of the Corn Belt (Ohio, Indiana)

REGIONS: much of the Mississippi Valley (Missouri and Arkansas)

Be able to find these regions on map:

Ozark Plateau

Ouachita Mountains

The Delta

TOURS: Neon, KY

What is a company town?

What are some advantages and disadvantages of a company town?

Does Neon, Kentucky remind you of any towns in SE Ohio?

Give some reasons why Appalachian coal is not mined as much as it used to be.

TOURS: Country Music (Branson, MO)

Where is Branson?

What is its economy based on?

CASE STUDY: Branson, MO

Why did Branson become a country music capital?

BIG JOBS: Electricity (TVA – Tennessee Valley Authority)

What is the TVA?

When and why was it created?

How many dams are in the TVA?

What is a dam or canal lock; that is, what does it do?

What are three ways electric power is generated in the TVA?

What is an example of a high energy-using industry that has been attracted to the TVA?

BIG JOBS: Poultry (Arkansas and North Carolina)

Note that it takes 7 to 8 pounds of feed (such as corn) to produce a 3-pound chicken. This is why you hear that producing meat is such a less efficient way of using land for food than growing crops. The missing pounds of food are burned as energy by the animal as it grows to market size. Note that the trends below are also happening to a lot of livestock and other agricultural operations.

What has happened to chicken consumption since 1935?

What has happened to the proportion of chickens raised on traditional farms as opposed to those raised in broiler factories?

What has happened to the price of chicken?

What has happened to the number of chicken farms?

What has happened to the average size of chicken farm?

What has happened to the wages earned by workers on chicken farms?

What does economy of scale mean?

What are some reasons why broiler production is clustered between the Midwest and the Southeast?

What does it mean if an industry is vertically integrated? (Exxon is another example.)

CASE STUDY: Norris, TN

Based on the map, what part of the country has the smallest farms with the lowest amount of sales per acre?

Are any of these areas in Ohio?

DIARIES: Shenandoah, PA

WEATHER: Appalachians (Boone, NC)

What is the definition of dew point?

What is orographic fog?

Why does fog form in valley bottoms?

Based on the map, is Appalachia a relatively foggy area?

What are some advantages of living on the valley floor rather than on hill or ridge tops?

LANDFORMS: Harper’s Ferry

LANDFORMS: Ridge and Valley (Sideling Hill, MD)

How was Sideling Hill formed?

APPALACHIA AND THE OZARKS web sites

8. THE DEEP SOUTH (study the map of THE DEEP SOUTH on the web site)

Read Chapter 8 in Birdsall and Florin

Read the following on the CD

REGIONS: Deep South (Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia)

What are the three states of the Deep South?

What covers 4/5 (80%) of the land?

What are three reasons why cotton production declined in the South?

Be able to locate these regions on a map:

Ridge and Valley

Piedmont

Black Belt

Coastal Plain

Pinelands

Delta

Okefenokee Swamp

REGIONS: Florida (northern)

Most of Florida is of what elevation and what distance from the sea?

Be able to locate these regions on a map:

Piney Woods

Everglades

Florida Keys

REGIONS: Virginia and the Carolinas (coastal)

REGIONS: Mississippi Valley (Southern Arkansas and Louisiana)

REGIONS: Mid South (western Tennessee and Kentucky)

REGIONS: Texas (eastern half)

Texas is a huge state located where the South, the West and Mexico. Thus parts of it have characteristics of each region. Even cities close together, like Dallas- Ft. Worth show this division --- it’s been said that Ft. Worth is a western city and Dallas is a southern city. As you look at the 14 subregions of Texas, divide them into categories and make a list of which ones you think are “Southern,” which ones are “Western” and which ones are “Mexican.”

Texas is second in population to what other state?

Texas is second in area to what other state?

TOURS: Research Triangle, NC

What are the three universities that are the core of the research triangle?

What is the RTP?

Give some examples of industry in the Research Triangle.

BIG JOBS: Research (Research Triangle, NC)

Give some examples of where the three types of research and development clusters are located. Private R & D? Federal R & D? University R & D?

CASE STUDY: Tunica, MS (poverty, casinos)

NOTE: “The Delta” is the name for a poor, rural, predominantly African American area along the Mississippi River where Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee meet. Memphis is the biggest city in this area. It is confusing because it is not a real “delta” in the true meaning of the word: a sandy and muddy lowlying area that forms at the mouth of a river, such as the “real” Mississippi delta in Louisiana where the Mississippi River flows into the Gulf Of Mexico.

How poor is Tunica compared to the 3,500 other counties in the USA?

What are some crops grown in the Delta?

What does a “dual school system” mean?

Recall the West Chicago case study: this is one of the areas that people left to migrate to Chicago.

What is a Tunica Riverboat?

What big out-of-state city supports a lot of the gambling in Tunica?

CASE STUDY: Lexington, GA

How is the location of cotton growing different in 1987 than it was 100 years earlier?

What four things led to the decline of the Cotton Belt? Do you know anything from the list in Regions: Deep South above that you could add to this list?

Is it true in Zanesville or another city you know that “homes at lower elevation tend to be smaller and lower in value than home at higher elevations?

What is kudzu?

What two rural activities have replaced the land that used to be cotton fields?

CASE STUDY: Paincourtville LA

What is the geographical setting of Paincourtville?

Who are the Cajuns? Where did their ancestors come from? What language do many of them speak and what religion are they?

What is the longlot system?

What is the main crop?

What is a shotgun style house?

What is a natural levee?

LANDFORMS: Mississippi Delta (the real one)

What are the two long rivers that flow through the interior of the US and end at the Mississippi Delta? What city is near their junction?

Why does the smaller Ohio River Basin carry more water than the much larger Missouri River Basin?

Can you locate and name the major tributary rivers of the Mississippi system?

What are distributaries?

How does a delta form?

LANDFORMS: Piedmont and Coastal Plain (Alabama and Georgia)

What is the theory of isostasy?

What is kaolin?

ACTIVITY D: Plantations and landforms (Alabama)

So, what IS the connection among counties with low 4^th grade test scores; high tenant farmer rates in 1880; counties with more than 25% poverty in 1990; dark clay soils formed on Selma limestone; large plantations in 1860; large landholdings in 1990; high proportion of African American population in 1990?

Who were sharecroppers?

ACTIVITY Y: Flood recurrence intervals (Memphis, TN)

What does the flood recurrence interval mean? That is, what does a 100-year flood mean?

Note that you could predict the height of a 500-year flood even though no one has ever seen one.

THE DEEP SOUTH web sites

9. THE SOUTHERN COASTLANDS (study the map of THE SOUTHERN COASTLANDS on the web site)

Read Chapter 9 in Birdsall and Florin

Read the following on the CD

REGIONS: Deep South (coasts of Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia)

REGIONS: Florida (peninsula)

REGIONS: Virginia and the Carolinas (coastal South Carolina)

REGIONS: Mississippi Valley (coastal Louisiana)

REGIONS: Texas (coastal)

TOURS: Kissemmee, FL

What is the main economic activity in this area?

What kind of agricultural activity is in central Florida?

TOURS: Miami Beach

Note that Miami Bean, like many other east coast beaches, is a separate strip of sand offshore, not attached to the mainland. This is why you usually have to cross a bridge just before you get to the beach area.

What is Art Deco style?

What group of people live in South Beach?

TOURS: Vieux Carre (New Orleans, LA)

Vieux Carre means “the old quarter” or “old town.”

What are some characteristics of French architecture?

What is the name of New Orleans tourist district’s famous main street?

TOURS: Main Street (Houston)

Note the difference between site and situation.

What economic activity lines the Houston Ship Channel?

Money from what mineral resource “built Houston?”

But what industry created __________ Alley?

BIG JOBS: Oil Refining

What is oil used for besides gasoline?

Note how good transportation connections to water, railroads and highways are important to oil refining.

BIG JOBS: Drainage

What had to be built before a lot of settlement could come to south Florida?

What are histosols?

CASE STUDY E: Little Havana, Miami, FL

Why didn’t south Florida cities grow until the 1890’s?

How many Cubans came to Florida in the Mariel Boatlift of the 1980’s?

What are the there largest groups in Dade County and their percentage of population?

What are some other ethnic groups in Miami?

Which group in Dade County has the oldest age profile (based on population pyramids)?

What is Calle Ocho?

DIARIES: Charleston, SC walking tour

What famous fort where the Civil War started is here?

WEATHER: Florida (tropical storms)

What is another name for hurricane?

What is the lowest pressure, cloudless center of the storm called?

What are the four main hazards associated with hurricanes?

THE SOUTHERN COASTLANDS web sites

10. THE AGRICULTURAL CORE (study the map of THE AGRICULTURAL CORE on the web site)

Read Chapter 10 in Birdsall and Florin

Read the following on the CD

REGIONS: Corn Belt (Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio)

REGIONS: Southern parts of Minnesota and Great Lakes (Wisconsin, Michigan)

REGIONS: Mississippi Valley (northern Missouri)

REGIONS: Mid South (northern Kentucky)

TOURS: Snoose Blvd., Minneapolis

Note the 800-store Mall of America

CASE STUDY: I-494 (Minneapolis Beltway)

What is an edge city?

What is special about the Mall of America?

Note that the I-494 strip has more office space than downtown Minneapolis or St. Paul.

DIARIES: Edina, MN

BIG JOBS: Clinic (Mayo Clinic, Rochester MN)

What is the Mayo Clinic? How did it get started?

How does it benefit the economy of the area?

BIG JOBS: Stockyards (South St. Paul, MN)

How has the location of livestock processing in the US changed over time? (Note that Chicago used to have the biggest stockyards and that Cincinnati used to be called Porkopolis.)

CASE STUDY K: Greenfield, IA

What percentage of US workers are farmers?

What three lines or zones define the Corn Belt on different sides?

What other agricultural products does the Corn Belt produce?

WEATHER: Great Lakes (continentality)

What are some ways to adapt buildings to cold climates?

LANDFORMS: Battle Creek (erosion) (Note: this Battle Creek is not the better-known Battle Creek, Michigan)

When rain falls on land, where are three places it can go?

LANDFORMS: Kentucky Bluegrass Basin (Note: all this also applies to the Nashville TN Basin)

What is a geographic region?

Why and how do caverns form in limestone?

What is a sinkhole?

ACTIVITY C: Topographic Maps (Holland, Mich.)

What is a large-scale map?

What are some cultural landscape features that settlers brought to Holland, Michigan from the Netherlands?

ACTIVITY H: GIS Tag or Count

GIS means “Geographical Information System.” Go through this exercise to understand the two different ways land use can be categorized or classified when computerized maps are maps from satellite photography. Hint: another way of thinking of “TAG” is that you use it if you give a “yes or no” answer to the question.

ACTIVITY K: Agricultural Land Use

Try to get 500 points on the map exercise.

ACTIVITY R: Regions and Regionalization

In Ohio, what is the relationship among non-glaciated hills, poverty, coal deposits, farm income and factory output?

What is the difference between formal and functional regions? (Hint, this issue is SOMEWHAT like that of the TAG count above: can you give a yes or no answer to the factor that is creating the region?)

THE AGRICULTURAL CORE web sites

11. THE GREAT PLAINS AND PRAIRIES (study the map of THE GREAT PLAINS AND PRAIRIES on the web site)

Read Chapter 11 in Birdsall and Florin

Read the following on the CD

REGIONS: Northern Plains (North and South Dakota)

Read carefully the introductory page about summer heat, elevation and snowfall.

How would you describe the map of counties with decreasing populations?

Be able to locate these regions on a map:

Red River Valley (overlaps into Minnesota)

Black Hills

Missouri River Beaks

REGIONS: Central Plains (Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma)

Read especially the introductory page and the idea of the Central Plains as a “passing through” region.

Be able to locate these regions on a map:

Sandhills

Platte River Valley

High Plains

Ouachita Mountains (overlaps into Missouri and Arkansas)

Corn Belt (overlaps into Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, etc.)

REGIONS: 14 Subregions of Texas

MAPS: The Continental Waterline

What two important lines defined by climate had a big influence on American history and settlement? What was their significance?

Give two definitions of culture. (Note that some people call tools, houses, etc. “material culture.”

What is the process of cultural adaptation?

Where is the continental waterline and what is its significance?

MAPS: Ownership of Gas Wells and CRP in Oklahoma

What is the CRP and what does it do?

What were the two historical decisions that had great influence on land ownership in Oklahoma?

Be able to give a few examples of where “Oklahoma” Indians came from.

Did Indian land in Anadarko include many oil wells or CRP allotments?

What is horizontal drilling?

What is the concept of undivided ownership?

MAPS: Parking lot fees in Dallas

When and why did Dallas “grow up?”

Note that even a modern, growing city like Dallas has empty buildings.

How do parking fees vary with location?

Also note the idea of multiple city centers.

TOURS: North Platte River, NE

What two trails followed the Platte?

What are the four characteristics of mid-continent rivers like the Platte?

Note the sequence of these mid-continent rivers from (1) mountain stream; (2) dry, high plains river used for irrigation and watering cattle; (3) slow, shallow, wide, muddy rivers; (4) wide, deep rivers as eastern moisture drains in.

What mineral resource is often along these rivers?

What was one bad, unintentional consequence of the energy boom of the 1970’s?

What is the City of North Platte’s claim to fame?

How can you spot center-pivot irrigation form an airplane?

TOURS: Guthrie, OK

What is Guthrie’s claim to fame?

Why were all the ornate buildings built?

How does Guthrie hold on without becoming a derelict town?

TOURS: Highway 6 (Omaha and Lincoln, NE)

What is the location of Omaha in terms of rivers?

If tall buildings give a clue to what big industry is in an area, what does Omaha have?

What two big activities does Lincoln, Nebraska have going for it?

BIG JOBS: Oil Production

Where in the US are major producing oilfields?

What is the continental shelf?

What are some landscape features find in an area of oil refineries?

CASE STUDY: Wilton, ND

What does climate have to do with why some Eastern European groups settled here?

Is Wilton grain shipped east to ports like Baltimore of Chicago for export?

What is the analogy between Wilton and Bismarck, North Dakota and Guthrie and Lincoln, Nebraska?

What is the climate like in counties of the US that are losing population?

CASE STUDY: Gillette, WY

What does Gillette call itself?

What happened to Wyoming coal production in the 1970’s? Does this help explain what happened to Appalachian coal production? (Note that Appalachian coal seams were often only 4, 6 or 8 feet thick vs. western seams of 20 or more feet thick.)

What are some features of a boomtown?

What is most of the coal used for?

What other energy mineral does the Gillette/Campbell County area have?

Is Gillette a modern Vershire, Vermont? (from New England exercises.)

CASE STUDY: Hill City, KS

Hill City is near the 20 inch rainfall line, also called the ________ waterline (from an earlier unit).

What is the Ogallala aquifer?

What is an acre-foot?

What is winter wheat? When is it planted and harvested? Where does it grow?

Where is spring wheat grown? (Note that spring wheat is planted in spring and harvested in late summer like a “regular” crop.)

What is suitcase farming?

What are the three interrelated trends that have affected agriculture in the Great Plains (and most other US agricultural areas)?

CASE STUDY: Austin, TX

What are three major activities in Austin that bring employment to the area?

Be able to write a few sentences about high-technology employment and research parks.

CASE STUDY: McAllen, TX

What river makes up much of the US-Mexico boundary? (Note: it’s pronounced REE-O, unlike the college and town in Ohio, which is REYE-O.)

In order, what are the top three international trade partners of the US?

What is a maquiladora?

What are some attractions of Mexico for US companies?

What is the “twin plant” concept?

What does NAFTA stand for and what is it?

Who are “snowbirds” or “winter Texans?” What region do they come from?

As you get closer to the Texas-Mexico border, what generally happens to these demographic variables: unemployment; poverty; percent Hispanic; average age; educational level?

DIARIES: Pflugerville, TX

DIARIES: McAllen, TX

What are some unusual crops in this area?

LANDFORMS: Sand Hills, Nebraska (wind, dunes, groundwater)

Where in Nebraska are the and hills?

Be able to define loess? (pronounced LERSE) alluvial, blowout, aquifer

Note on the glacier map that the Ohio and Missouri Rivers roughly form the southern boundaries of glaciation. Also note that Long Island and Cape Cod were moraines formed by the glaciers, as we saw earlier.

What is the best guess about where all the sand came from?

LANDFORMS: Llano Estacado, TX

Llano Estacado is Spanish for ______________?

What is the Ogallala Aquifer? Where is it located? What is happening to it?

What are some agricultural activities in the area?

ACTIVITY E: Population Pyramids, TX

Understand the general idea of how population pyramids are made and what they show?

ACTIVITY FX: Land Claims (Nebraska)

Have a general idea of how the township and range numbering system works.

THE GREAT PLAINS AND PRAIRIES web sites

12. THE “EMPTY” INTERIOR (study the map of THE “EMPTY” INTERIOR on the web site)

Read Chapter 12 in Birdsall and Florin

Read the following on the CD

REGIONS: Rocky Mountains (Colorado, Montana, Wyoming)

What are some characteristics of areas of high elevation?

In this area, how is natural vegetation on North and South facing slopes different?

Be able to locate on a map:

Yellowstone Area

Glacier National Park

The High Line

REGIONS: Alaska (interior)

Be able to locate on a map:

The North Slope

Brooks Range

Aleutian Islands

Alaskan Panhandle

What is permafrost?

What city holds one-half of Alaska’s population? Is it also the capital? (What city is Alaska’s capital and what is unusual about access to it?)

What are some economic activities in Alaska?

REGIONS: Great Basin (Utah, Nevada)

The map shows that this area is called a basin because_____?

Be able to locate on map:

Lake Tahoe

Las Vegas

Great Salt Lake

Ancient Lake Bonneville (Bonneville Salt Flats)

REGIONS: Desert Southwest (Arizona, New Mexico)

REGIONS: Pacific Northwest (eastern interior Washington and Oregon, Idaho)

Be able to locate on a map:

Olympic Peninsula

Puget Sound

Willamette Valley

Cascade Mountains

Snake River Plain

REGIONS: California (eastern, interior adjacent to Nevada)

REGIONS: Texas (western tip)

TOURS: The Mormon Trek (Utah)

What direction does weather generally move in the US?

What states did the Mormons live in before settling in Utah?

BIG JOBS: Genealogy (Salt Lake City)

Why do Mormons do genealogical research?

What is the official name of the Mormon Church?

CASE STUDY: Salt Lake City

The Mormons came to Utah (then Mexican territory) around 1847 to get away from US government rules and religious persecution. Bad timing – what three things happened in 1848, 1849 and 1869 that brought Americans back to their isolated area? (By the way, the hordes of people who came to San Francisco and northern California seeking gold after 1849 were known as ‘49ers --- thus the name of the football team.)

Many Utah counties are _____% Mormon?

What’s unusual about Utah’s population in terms of smoking, drinking and birth rate?

What three main categories of industry came to Utah?

LANDFORMS: Wasatch Fault (earthquakes, faults, springs)

Describe the location of Utah’s major cities in terms of the Wasatch Mountains and the Great Salt Lake.

What natural hazard might occur along the Wasatch Fault?

TOURS: Aspen, CO

How would you describe Aspen? (Sometimes called Hollywood East)

CASE STUDY: Vail, CO

Where is Vail in reference to Denver in terms of geographic features?

How was its road connection to Denver improved? What Interstate highway is it on?

What other Colorado ski resort town does Vail remind you of?

WEATHER: Rocky Mountains (elevation, avalanches)

What unusual natural hazard is found in this region?

Be able to give a couple of reasons why avalanches happen.

LANDFORMS: Basin and Range (faults, desert, pediment, inselberg)

Where (names of states) is the Basin and Range?

What caused the terraces on the sides of some cliffs?

What is an inselberg?

BIG JOBS: Ammunition (Hawthorne, NV)

90% of the land in Nevada is owned by ______?

What are some reasons why it makes more sense to store ammunition in Nevada than in New Jersey?

What does it mean when the government “privatizes” something?

ACTIVITY Z: Choose a site for nuclear waste

How many nuclear power plants are there in the US and what percentage of electricity do they generate?

MAPS: London Bridge (Yellow Pages)

What is the name of the city where the London Bridge is located?

How did the bridge get to Arizona?

BIG JOBS: Retirement

What is unusual about the road pattern of Sun City?

What is xeroscaping? (pronounced zero….by the way, ‘xero is a Greek word root meaning dry, so it means “dry + landscaping” and the root is also used in xerox from xerography meaning “dry + writing”)

What region of the US do most retirees who go to Arizona come from?

What town is the “new age capital” of Arizona?

Which type of town would you most like to live in when you retire?

CASE STUDY: Shiprock, NM (Navaho and electric power generation)

What are the four “Four Corner” states?

What is the major Indian group in this area?

The power plants here burn what type of fuel?

What are these two types of houses: hogan and “coffee grinder house”

DIARIES: Shiprock, NM

(no special questions)

WEATHER: Desert Southwest (subsiding air, dust storms)

What are two unusual natural hazards in this area?

What is a playa lake? (pronounced ‘plier’)

BIG JOBS: Oil Transport (Alaska)

Which end of the Prudhoe Bay-Valdez pipeline does what?

Besides keeping in heat, why must buildings in permafrost areas be insulated?

How do they try to protect pipelines from earthquakes?

How far away do birds that arrive in Alaska in the summer come from?

CASE STUDY: Central Alaska

What are three on the major economic activities in Alaska?

DIARIES: Top of the World (Barrow, AK)

(no special questions)

THE “EMPTY” INTERIOR web sites

13. THE SOUTHWEST BORDER AREA (study the map of THE SOUTHWEST BORDER AREA on the web site)

Read Chapter 13 in Birdsall and Florin

Read the following on the CD

REGIONS: California (southern)

REGIONS: Texas (Mexican border)

REGIONS: Great Basin (southern Arizona and New Mexico)

REGIONS: Desert Southwest

Be able to find the following on a map:

Canyonlands

Four Corners area

Rio Grande Valley

DIARIES: The Valley (Mission, TX)

(Note that this is the lower part of the same Rio Grande Valley in New Mexico.)

What are some crops grown here?

TOURS: Water Canal (Imperial Valley, CA)

Be able to find the Salton Sea on a map

How did the Salton Sea form?

What is unusual about the elevation of this area?

What are some special types of crops grown here?

What material accumulates in the soil and causes agricultural problems?

BIG JOBS: IRRIGATION (southern CA)

Are Imperial Valley farms small, family operated, unirrigated operations?

What are the major crops and livestock here?

Why do farmers grow alfalfa?

What is an unusual use for cow manure?

CASE STUDY: Imperial (CA)

What is a transect?

What ethnic group predominates?

How does income in this area compare with the rest of California?

TOURS: NAFTA Highway (Laredo, TX and other border cities)

What is the nickname of Interstate 35 and why?

What does N.A.F.T.A. stand for and what is it?

What is the economy of Laredo, TX like?

THE SOUTHWEST BORDER AREA web sites

14. CALIFORNIA (study the map of CALIFORNIA on the web site)

Read Chapter 14 in Birdsall and Florin

Read the following on the CD

REGIONS: California

Be able to locate these areas on a map. (It will help to make a small sketch map.)

Klamath Mountains

Coast Ranges

Sacramento Valley

San Francisco

-- Silicon Valley

San Joaquin Valley

Sierra Nevada Mountains

Imperial Valley

Mojave Desert (pronounced mow-HAW-vay)

Death Valley

California’s environment is very diverse, but what two generalizations can you make?

MAPS: Capital Gains

Does California “feed the rest of the nation?”

Is California above average in factory production? (Use a US map to name the eight states that are above average in factory production.)

People in California made a lot of money selling _____?

TOURS: San Francisco

What event in 1849 made San Francisco boom?

What is B.A.R.T.?

What two towers in the landscape symbolize the old and new San Francisco?

What is gentrification?

TOURS: Where the Stars Shop

What are the names of three fashionable shopping areas in Los Angeles?

TOURS: Wilshire Boulevard

Where does Wilshire Blvd. start and where does it end?

TOURS: Whitier Boulevard

What is infill housing?

What is the main ethnic group along this road?

CASE STUDY: Irvine

What is a planned community?

BIG JOBS: Movies

What two California cities are centers for movie special effects companies?

What are some factors that attracted the movie industry to Los Angeles?

What metropolitan area outside California is the site for a lot of movies?

BIG JOBS: Flexible Production

As you read this, keep this chart in mind:

Manufacturing – making things – tangible

Service – doing things – intangible

What are some characteristics of places that have a service-based economy?

What is Fordism?

What are some differences in the types of job you would have on an assembly line compared to “flexible production?”

What are speculative buildings?

WEATHER: Southern California

Match these hazards to the appropriate season: fire, smog, rain, mudslides, waves

Note how the subtropical high pressure center moves north in summer, blocking Pacific winds (and the jet stream) that would bring rain.

LANDFORMS: San Andreas Fault

From the map, has Ohio ever had any big earthquakes?

What is the key structural in building earthquake-proof houses?

LANDFORMS: Sierra Nevada

Describe how the Sierra Nevada Mountains were formed.

Mountain valleys carved by rapidly eroding streams have the cross-sectional shape of what letter?

When glaciers move down these valleys, the cross-sectional shape changes to what letter?

Name the three well-known glaciated canyons in the Sierra Nevadas from north to south.

ACTIVITY I: Index of Local Importance

What is an Index of Local Importance?

What is the basic idea of how it is calculated and what it shows?

Which of these things does Ohio have more of than the national average (that is, a higher I.L.I.)?

Motorcycles

Lawsuits

Health spending

Education spending

Computers in education

CALIFORNIA web sites

15. THE NORTH PACIFIC COAST (study the map of THE NORTH PACIFIC COAST on the web site)

Read Chapter 15 in Birdsall and Florin

Read the following on the CD

REGIONS: Pacific Northwest

REGIONS: Alaska

REGIONS: California (northern)

TOURS: Leavenworth, WA

(Not to be confused with Leavenworth, Kansas military base and prison!). Leavenworth is located in a valley in what mountain range?

What is the town’s ethnic tourism theme?

The area is a major grower of what fruit?

BIG JOBS: Airplanes (Boeing, Seattle WA)

Coastal rain and mountain snows make what river carry the third largest volume of water in the USA? What major dam is on it?

What fish spawn here?

What utility prices are cheap because of the dams? What metal that uses a lot of this energy source is made here?

What large US corporation is here because of the cheap metal prices?

Is the USA a net importer or exporter of aircraft?

Be able to trace the chin of reasons why aircraft are produced her (starting with the rain and snow).

BIG JOBS: Apples

What geographic factors helped make central Washington the largest apple-producing region in the US?

What group picks a lot of the apples?

CASE STUDY: Oakridge, OR (logging)

(Note: this is not Oak Ridge, Tenn where the Oak Ridge Boys are from)

What are two geographic reasons why such vast forests are located here?

What is the sequence of regions where most lumber was produced in the US?

What region produces the most lumber now?

What are some reasons why lumbering has declined in Oakridge?

What are some other economic activities the area can develop besides lumbering?

WEATHER: Pacific Northwest (onshore winds, orographic precipitation)

What is the weather like in the Pacific Northwest?

What unusual crops are grown here?

The wet weather is the interplay of what three factors?

LANDFORMS: Dry Falls (lava, ice dam, flood, coulee, cliffs, dam)

What is the water balance?

The landscape of much of eastern Washington and Oregon, southern Idaho and parts of northern California and Nevada were shaped by gigantic floods of _____?

What is the name of the type of rock found here?

A series of temporary dams created huge lakes. Then the released water created the deep ridges and cliffs in the area known as the Channeled Scablands. What natural feature dammed up these lakes and then released them over and over again?

What is a coulee?

BIG JOBS: Fishing (Alaska)

What is primary industry?

What has happened to the New England cod fishing industry? To the Alaskan cod fishing industry?

What is an EEZ? How far out does it extend?

What is a great circle route? (Note: a tight string on the surface of a globe [the shortest distance] becomes a curve on a flat map.)

What other types of fishing occurs in Alaska beside cod?

Why is the fish population greater in cold water?

WEATHER: Alaskan Valley (orographic precipitation, rain shadow)

How does precipitation vary in Alaska from South to North?

What happens to the amount of precipitation as you go up and over the mountains from west to east?

What is adiabatic heating?

Note that the agricultural area along the Matanuska glacier and river are between Anchorage (Alaska’s largest city) and Denali (Mount McKinley), the tallest mountain in North America.

What are the major crops grown in Alaska?

How did the relative importance of these crops change between 1950 and 1992?

What unusual livestock are raised?

Summarize the story of the Palmer Project that resettled families to Alaska in the 1930’s.

ACTIVITY X: Map overlays (choose a site for housing in Alaska)

What does it mean to “overlay maps?”

What is the idea of “windowing” with maps?

ACTIVITY VX: Metaphors for Wilderness

What is a metaphor?

What do you think “Wilderness” is or should be? Try to assign percentages to these perspectives so that they total 100%: Museum; Challenge; Refuge; Playground; Laboratory; Resource; Spirit

THE NORTH PACIFIC COAST web sites

16. HAWAII (study the map of HAWAII on the web site)

Read Chapter 16 in Birdsall and Florin

Read the following on the CD

REGIONS: Hawaii

In what region of the country did you see basaltic lava before?

Understand the idea of a gradient of age from oldest in the northwest to youngest in the southeast, and, a gradient of moisture from wet on the northeast to dry on the southwest. (Note, windward means the side winds blow from; leeward is the opposite.)

Are Pearl Harbor and Honolulu on the “Big Island?”

LANDFORMS: Island Volcanoes

Be able to locate these islands on a map: Hawaii (the Big Island), Maui, Oahu (where Honolulu and Pearl Harbor are located.)

Why are the islands lined up in a row?

Why do the island get larger to the southeast?

Why are the geologically youngest islands to the southeast?

Why is the greatest amount of current volcanic activity to the southeast?

Why are the tallest mountains to the southeast?

What is a geologic “hot spot?”

What is an atoll?

What is a seamount?

What is a tsunami (pronounced soo-NAW-me) and what do people call it colloquially?

What is the fresh water situation on the islands?

CASE STUDY: Pahoa

What types of crops are grown here?

MAPS: Solar Energy

What factors increase or decrease the amount of solar energy a place receives compared to the theoretical amount it should receive?

HAWAII web sites