UNIT 1: Texas Geography

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UNIT 1Texas Geography

• Understanding the physical and human
  characteristics of our state

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Era of Natural Texas and Its People

• What is an era? A fixed period of time
  characterized by particular events, features,
  developments, or people.
• Why do historians divide history into eras?
  Historians divide history into eras in order to
  create blocks of time that have similar
  characteristics in order to organize and present
  information about the past.

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Era of Natural Texas and Its People

• TEKS 1A
• Identify the major eras in Texas history,
  describe their defining characteristics, and
  explain why historians divide the past into eras,
  including Natural Texas and its People Age of
  Contact Spanish Colonial Mexican National
  Revolution and Republic Early Statehood Texas
  in the Civil War and Reconstruction Cotton,
  Cattle, and Railroads Age of Oil Texas in the
  Great Depression and World War II Civil Rights
  and Conservatism and Contemporary Texas

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6 Geographical Questions

• Location
• Place
• Regions
• Human-Environment Interaction
• Human Systems
• Physical Systems

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Location Where is it?

• Absolute Location The exact location of a place
  on the earths surface
• Relative Location The location of a place in
  relation to other places
• The Absolute location and Relative location of
  Texas affect it in many ways How has Texas
  relative location to Mexico affected it?

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Latitude and Longitude
Longitude
Latitude
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Using Latitude and Longitude

• The Absolute Location of a place is given using
  latitude and longitude coordinates
• Coordinates are written using a numerical
  measurement and a directional label.
• Latitude is given first followed by longitude
• (29 N, 95 W) is the approximate location of
  Kingwood on the earths surface

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Place What is it like?

• Place refers to the physical and human
  characteristics of a location
• Physical Characteristics include
• Landforms, Climate, plants, animals
• Human Characteristics include
• Language, Religion, Architecture, Music,
  Politics, ways of life

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Physical Characteristics
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Human Characteristics
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Regions How does it compare to other places?

• Geographers divide areas into regions in order to
  better study them.
• Regions are places that are united based on
  common characteristics
• Regions can be based on physical, human, business
  and other characteristics

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How to do G-PERSIA (Example)

• Define Vocabulary
• aquifer an underground water reservoir (p. 34)
• Categorize Vocabulary use formula word is
  category because reason/justification.
• Aquifer is geography because its a landform.

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4 NaturalRegionsof Texas
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Human-Environment Interaction

• How do humans react to their environment and
  how does it affect them?
• Ex Pollution
• Deforestation
• Hurricanes/Tornadoes
• Farming
• Damming Rivers to make lakes

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Human Systems

• Movement - How people move through the
  environment
• Cultural Diffusion - new ideas brought by
  migrating people become widely accepted.
• People bring ideas and goods with them when they
  move from one place to another.

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Physical Systems

• Geographers analyze physical systems such as
  mountains, volcanoes, hurricanes, glaciers to see
  how they interact with and shape places and
  regions.
• They also study plant and animal ecosystems that
  depend on each other and their surroundings in
  places and regions for their survival.

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Movement in Texas
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Why Geography?

• Geography prepares us for modern life
• People, businesses, governments depend on
  geography everyday to meet their needs
• Computer software such as GIS and GPS use
  geography to help people

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Sizing Up Texas

• Second largest U.S. State
• The area of Texas is 267,277 square miles
• Some parts of Texas are closer to the capitals of
  other states than to Austin.

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Sizing Up Texas

• Texas is the size of all of these states
  combined
• New York Pennsylvania
• Ohio Illinois
• Connecticut Rhode Island
• Massachusetts Vermont
• New Hampshire New Jersey
• Maine

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Sizing Up Texas

• El Paso, Texas is closer to the Pacific Ocean
  than to Houston.
• Some students in Texas live 4 hrs from the
  nearest school
• How could these geographic facts affect Texas?

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Roy Bedichek

• He was an author and speaker considered a
  Naturalist
• who traveled and
• documented the
• Texas landscape for
• over 30 years.