Catalog Description

Advisory: Eligibility for ENGL 1A
Hours: 54 lecture
Description: Population, migration, religion, languages, agriculture, economic development and exploration of how humans interact with their environment. Analysis of differences of cultures including housing types, agricultural techniques, and popular and folk customs. Investigation of humans as the primary modifier of the physical landscape within the limits of the Earth's natural resources. (C-ID GEOG 120) (CSU, UC)

Course Student Learning Outcomes

  • CSLO #1: Explain basic demographic tools used to compare places, such as population pyramids and the demographic transition.
  • CSLO #2: Compare and contrast folk versus popular culture by investigating social customs and how they diffuse.
  • CSLO #3: Summarize basic precepts of each major universalizing and ethnic religions and identify where they are generally practiced.
  • CSLO #4: Identify places in the world with major conflicts related to political boundaries, demographics, ethnicity and economics, enumerating key issues of each conflict and explain the history behind the conflict.
  • CSLO #5: Describe the major forms of subsistence and commercial agriculture, the geographic extent, their methods of food production, and human ecology with emphasis on environmental challenges.
  • CSLO #6: Estimate natural resources supplies, demand, and location, such as energy and water, and associated conservation issues.

Effective Term

Fall 2021

Course Type

Credit - Degree-applicable

Contact Hours

54

Outside of Class Hours

108

Total Student Learning Hours

162

Course Objectives

1. Apply geographic concepts to various aspects of human culture.
2. Explain or define basic demographic concepts such as demographic transition, diagram population pyramids and provide examples of overpopulation.
3. Identify migration distribution patterns and assess the factors responsible for these human movement trends.
4. Identify various human social customs, and appreciate unique cultural folk traditions, while contrasting these with popular globalized human practices.
5. Map world language families and their various linguistic divisions while assessing the impact of global languages on human culture.
6. Observe the distribution of world religions, compare the universalizing traditions with distinct ethnic belief systems.
7. Identify various ethnic groups,and the geographic influences upon these groups. Discuss the importance of multinational state integration and the potential for conflict.
8. Interpret existing political boundaries in demographic, ethnic, and economic terms.
9. Explain the distribution of wealth of developed and developing regions.
10. Assess the various measurements of economic development and the impact of globalization.
11. Analyze agricultural activity by relating it to climate, water, and soils. Summarize the types of agriculture while categorizing various regions as developed and developing.
12. Define settlements versus urbanization in terms of human culture. Summarize the historical perspective of settlements as well as the current distributional patterns.
13. Analyze various resource issues as confronted by human cultures. Discuss various solutions, conservation, development problems and the manners that cultures respond to these.

General Education Information

  • Approved College Associate Degree GE Applicability
    • AA/AS - Multicultural Studies
    • AA/AS - Social Sciences
  • CSU GE Applicability (Recommended-requires CSU approval)
    • CSUGE - D5 Geography
    • CSUGE - D7 Interdisciplinary Soc/Behav
    • CSUGE - D8 Pol Sci/Govt/Lgl In
  • Cal-GETC Applicability (Recommended - Requires External Approval)
    • IGETC Applicability (Recommended-requires CSU/UC approval)
      • IGETC - 4E Geography

    Articulation Information

    • CSU Transferable
    • UC Transferable

    Methods of Evaluation

    • Classroom Discussions
      • Example: After a lecture on population statistics, students complete a worksheet on the relationship between income and natural increase rates. Students will note that more income, per capita, often leads to lower natural increase rates. Students continue to discuss possible population growth challenges and solutions.
    • Objective Examinations
      • Example: Ask specific exam questions regarding religions of the world, where are they located, with a focus on comparing and contrasting their basic precepts. For example, how Islam and Christianity are similar and different, such as Jews, Christianity and Muslims all agree that Abraham is the Patriarch of their religion and founder of monotheism.

    Repeatable

    No

    Methods of Instruction

    • Lecture/Discussion
    • Distance Learning

    Lecture:

    1. Instructor discusses population growth challenges and solutions by referencing the - "Demographic Transition" through graphing tabular data showing income and natural increase rates for various countries. Through lecture and class discussion, students discover the inverse relationship between high wealth and low population growth, such as in developed countries.

    Distance Learning

    1. After an instructor lecture on religious precepts, students will read about religious precepts and look at maps to conceptualize world religion and its distribution, important aspects, ceremonies, unique landscapes and where are these religions are readily present.

    Typical Out of Class Assignments

    Reading Assignments

    1. Read assigned chapter on population to prepare for weekly quiz and a classroom discussion regarding population challenges and solutions. 2. Read hand-out/article on fossil fuel consumption in the US and around the world to be prepared for a discussion on future adaptation to limited supplies and pollution problems.

    Writing, Problem Solving or Performance

    1. Examine tabular data on Gross Domestic Product per capita and Crude Birth Rates (CBR), Death Rates, Nat. Increase Rates (NIR) then graph for listed countries. Assess the correlation between high GDP per capita and low CBR and NIR. Discuss outliers and patterns for each country. 2. Starting with textbook, research persistent ethnic conflicts around the world as assigned to each group. Then use other sources, such as the Internet, to elaborate on the historical and geographical context of the assigned conflict. Present to group findings with review questions for the group.

    Other (Term projects, research papers, portfolios, etc.)

    Presentation (ethnic conflicts), linked to research topic (previous listed above).

    Required Materials

    • Contemporary Human Geography
      • Author: James M. Rubenstein
      • Publisher: Pearson
      • Publication Date: 2017
      • Text Edition: 12th
      • Classic Textbook?:
      • OER Link:
      • OER:

    Other materials and-or supplies required of students that contribute to the cost of the course.