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–LOCATION: POSITION ON THE EARTH’S SURFACE.
Absolute and relative location are two ways of describing the position of places on the earth’s surface. In many situations, it is important to identify absolute locations as precise points on the earth. The coordinates of latitude and longitude are widely accepted and useful ways of portraying exact locations. Determining relative location, the position of one place with respect to other important places, is equally significant.
–PLACE: NATURAL AND CULTURAL CHARACTERISTICS.
All places on earth have distinct natural and cultural characteristics that distinguish them from other places. The natural characteristics are landforms, water bodies, climate, soils, natural vegetation, and animal life. Human ideas and actions also shape the character of places, which vary in population, settlement patterns, architecture, kinds of economic and recreational activities, transportation, and communication networks. One place may also differ from another in by the people who live there: by their languages and by their forms of economic, social, and political organization.
–RELATIONSHIPS WITHIN PLACES: HUMANS AND ENVIRONMENTS.
People modify and adapt to natural settings in ways that reveal cultural values, economic and political circumstances, and technological abilities. It is important to understand how such human-environment relationships develop and what the consequences are for people and for the environment.
–MOVEMENT: HUMANS INTERACTING ON THE EARTH.
Human beings, unevenly distributed across the earth, interact with each other; that is, they travel from one place to another, they communicate with each other, or they rely upon products, information, and ideas that come from beyond their immediate environment. Interaction continues to change as transportation and communication technologies change. We need to anticipate these changes and to examine their geographical and societal consequences.
–REGIONS: HOW THEY FORM AND CHANGE.
A region is any area that displays unity in terms of selected criteria. Regions are used in geographic education to examine, define, describe, explain, and analyze the human and natural environment over time. We may view regions as an intermediate step between knowledge of local places and knowledge of the entire planet.