Overview of AP Human Geography Unit 1

Hey there geographers and welcome back to the Mr. Sin channel. This video covers unit 1, but I'm also going to have a summary video that'll cover units 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. Now before we get started, I need you to click the link in the description below. It's going to link you to the ultimate review packet. Here you're going to get a study guide that'll go along with this video. Pause this video right now. Once you got it printed out and you're all set up, Unpause it and then let's go through the unit together. This video is going to summarize all the main concepts. Now it's not going to teach you everything, but it's going to focus on the big things we have to understand and it's going to go along with the AP Human Geography curriculum. Unit 1 starts off with 1.1 where we're going to be talking about maps. It's an introduction to all these different maps you'll see throughout the course. From there we move into 1.2 where we start to look at geographic data. We'll move over to 1.3 where we'll elaborate on our conversation to understand the power of geographic data. 1.4 where we'll talk about spatial concepts and how things are laid out in the world. After that, it's on to 1.5, where we'll look at human-environment interaction. Then to wrap up this whole unit, we'll look at 1.6 with scale of analysis. and also 1.7 with regional analysis. This unit's definitely one of the shorter units in AP Human Geography. It only makes up about eight to 10% of the test, but the concepts inside are going to be used a lot in different questions for all the other units. One of the first things that you're gonna notice when taking AP Human Geography is geographers love maps, and they love looking at different data sets. We're gonna be changing our scale all the time to try and find trends and patterns. And one of the ways we can do this is looking at reference maps and thematic. maps. Reference maps focus on emphasizing the location of places but they don't include data. Thematic maps still show us the location of a place but now they're actually adding an element to it. They're adding data. Thematic maps normally have a main concept they're trying to convey and so the data is going to be centered around that particular topic. Like if we are looking at carbon emissions or if we were looking at the amount of educated people within a society. These could be thematic maps that are showing a particular concept. I can't stress this enough. it's really important for you to understand how to read maps. The AP test always asks questions that are using maps. A lot of times... the maps have the answers right on. Now I need you guys to promise me something. When you get to the AP test or a test in your class, if you see a map, one, check the title. What is this map trying to convey to you? Two, check the key or that legend. Same thing. What does the symbols mean? What do the colors mean? What are the ranges? And three, check the question and connect it back to that map. Before you even look at the answers, study that map a little bit. What is it showing you? The AP test is gonna use a lot of terminology inside there. their questions to see if you're really understanding the concepts. One of the first concepts we need to understand when looking at a map is the difference between absolute distance and relative distance. Notice I didn't say absolute location and relative location. That's something different. If a question's asking you about absolute distance, it's trying to see can you see distance in quantitative terms, miles, kilometers, etc. While questions that are asking you about relative distance are talking in more qualitative terms. How far away is it? Oh, it's 30 minutes south. 10 minutes to the west. Those would be more qualitative and would be relative distance. Remember with directions, in order to see if something's north, south, west, east, we have to look at that compass rose. That's going to show us the directions of the map. Two more concepts that you might see in a question about maps is clustering and dispersal. When you're thinking of clustering, think it's grouped together. We're all in one spot. You're looking at how close things are over a geographic space. When we're talking about dispersal, dispersed. So dispersal is showing how far things are spread out. Wow. Lastly, make sure you can understand how to read a topographic map. Sometimes the AP board will ask questions that will use a topographic map to show elevation, where we're trying to see how landforms are changing based on the contours of the Earth's surface. The last part of 1.1 is looking at different types of maps. Now, before we go over the different answers here, I want you to pause this video and fill out the table in the study guide. Let's see how you're doing. All right, first up, we have the Mercator Projection, and this one was originally used a lot for when we're traveling across the sea. Naval Expedition used this map. because it was so good with directions. It really minimized the distortion that was occurring there. However, where this projection really falls short is when we're trying to understand the shape and size of land masses. Are you saying the map is wrong? Oh dear, yes. You can see when looking at the Mercator projection, Africa looks pretty small in comparison to Greenland. Reality is that's not the case. Up next, we have the Goody Homolocene projection. And this one does a great job at showing accurate size and shape of land masses. The biggest drawback of this map is as you can see, it's kind of hard to see everything. And that's because it's an interrupted map. We actually have parts of the world taken out of it. And the goal of this is trying to minimize distortion. Another example of an interrupted map is the Fuller Projection. And I'm not exactly sure why, but I always thought this one looks really cool just because it's so different than what we're used to seeing. One of the biggest downfalls is it can be confusing to understand. And exactly what's being portrayed in the map. Also, if you notice this map can't actually use cardinal directions This would be a terrible map to use for like sea travel or trying to figure out how to get from point A to point B With the Robinson map we can see that some of the distortion actually isn't occurring anymore here. We can see actually a better representation of the size of some of these landmasses. Now one of the issues that this map struggles with is because distortion is spread out so much between all the different aspects, our shape, our size, our distance, that creates distortion on every aspect of the map. Overall though, it does a pretty good job of showing things. The last projection we're going to talk about is the Winkle Triple projection. And no, that picture is not the Robinson map. They're very similar. Notice when we're comparing them, the Winkle Triple map is actually more rounder in shape. It's a little bit larger. Here it's trying to handle distortion in another way. Alright, how'd you guys do? If you did well and you're understanding this, then continue with this video. Let's go on to 1.2. However, if you're struggling a little bit, go back to my YouTube channel and check out some of these videos here. 1.2 is all about geographic data. We'll be looking at how the government uses data, businesses, individuals, organizations. We'll look at how we collect data. And the first thing we have to understand really is what's the difference between qualitative and quantitative research. When thinking about qualitative research, think about information that's more opinion-based. These are going to be observations we might have. We might witness certain things. Here, it's not necessarily measurable. Quantitative research, on the other hand, focuses on trying to find concrete facts, looking at data and numbers. When using qualitative research, you're going to be seeing people use surveys. polls, interviews, or even focus groups. Quantitative research, on the other hand, is gonna be using things like the census, research that can be replicated, or simulations that can be replicated, algorithms, and things that are focusing on data collection. All right, what I want you to do quick is pause. this video you're gonna go down to your study guide come up with an example of data collection for the government businesses and individuals once you're done unpause the video when talking about the government we can see the census is definitely gonna be one of the main ways that they collect data this is done every 10 years and it surveys the entire population. Businesses use surveys and polls and focus groups. They even use things like the census to be able to determine where they should open new locations. Individuals normally lack capital, so they can't afford to do large studies, but they can afford to do things like surveys and polls. This is an easy way for them to collect quick data, oftentimes surveying the people in their community or their cohorts. The last thing that we have to cover for 1.2 when we're looking at the collection of data and also the application of it is a GIS. This is a geographic information system. This is a system that analyzes, manages, and displays lots of information on a particular geographic area. Oftentimes this information is collected through GPS, and one of the things that we can create here is layered maps, where we can layer data on top of each other to look for trends. With 1.3 we are elaborating on geographic data. And what I want you to do here is try to complete this section of the study guide before watching the video. All these concepts we've already referenced. The only one we haven't talked about yet is scale. For scale, we're going to use the scale tool. just remember for now when we're talking about maps, it's the distance ratio that corresponds to the same distance on the Earth's surface. Answer 1.3 once you're done, unpause the video, we'll go over the answer. When looking at the chart we can see we have personal, business, government, and organization. These are all different scales. On the personal level we can use geographic data to better understand the direction of a community or a city. We could use it to figure out if we want to live in a certain location over another location. This could be done by looking at information about schools or crime rates or even just medium income levels. All these things can help us make decisions in our own personal lives and it's all geographic data. Businesses on the other hand will use information to better understand their markets they're located in, what products are needed, who are their main customers. At the same time they could use it to determine the location of new stores. Organizations are a little bit different than the other two categories we've talked about because it really depends on the size of the organization. Here though organizations can use geographic data to better understand the needs of the community. so they can serve them to the best of their ability. The government uses data for tons of things. Where are we going to have voting districts? How are we going to redistrict these? Where should new schools be placed? The government uses all this information to make sure they can provide the best services and also take care of all the needs of everyone in the state. The last part of this section of the unit is about the census. Really just explaining what it is. The census is an official count of a population of a country. Normally it happens every 10 years. It's going to come up in this unit, urban unit. It's going to come up in the... the industrialization unit, all these different units will have census information. This is how federal funding is determined, how we can start to see where populations are moving. We will redistrict boundaries based off this. For 1.4, we're talking about spatial concepts. Going back to the start of this video, I mentioned absolute and relative distance. Let's start off by actually explaining the other concept that's very similar, absolute location and relative location. Absolute location, what I want you to think about is like GPS on your phone. It's using longitude and latitude coordinates. It's the exact spot on Earth. That spot isn't going to change. Relative location, on the other hand, is when we use other objects in the area to describe our location. For example, you can see right here, I'm by a waterfall with this crazy hat on. This is one of my Where in the World Was Mr. Sin videos. Relatively, I can describe the area around, and that provides you a sense of place for me. But it doesn't give you the exact spot. When geographers are talking about place, they're talking about the environmental characteristics and also the human characteristics of a certain geographic location. Both of these together create a sense of place. They create identity for this location that we're talking about. Environmental factors might be the climate of an area. We could look at mountains or rivers. How many trees do they have? Is it flat? All of these different things would make up the environmental factors of a place. Human characteristics, on the other hand, are going to be things like the religion breakdown of... of this certain location we're talking about, the racial breakdown, gender divide. We could also look at languages. All these different things would show human characteristics of a place. Now, one of the interesting things that we'll study a lot in AP Human Geography is how do places interact with each other? And we could go back to Tobler, who came up with the first law of geography. As places spread out or as objects or items spread out, they're less likely to interact with each other. Distance decay is kind of the basis of Tobler's first law. If point A is here and point B is here. They're more likely to interact than if I was looking at, let's say, point A and point C. Now, many have argued that distance decay is no longer happening as much, and Tobler's first law of geography may be starting to waver a little bit. And that's because of space-time compression. Space-time compression is all about how technology and communication advancements has changed how we interact with different places. As we've seen these advances happen, we can see that people are now more likely to interact with things farther away. Before we go on to 1.5. I want to quick review a couple different terms. The first one's pattern which just looks at the geometric arrangement of objects within a space. Now when we're talking about space, which is our next term, we're talking about the gap between different objects. Then lastly we have flow which is just looking at the movement of people, goods, services, and ideas between one place and another. 1.5 is all about human environmental interaction. It's this constant back and forth between the environment and between society. One of the things we have to start with is sustainability. Really what's a sta- Sustainability boils down to is the current generation using their resources in a way that is not damaging the environment for future generations. Now there's one debate that's come up a lot throughout history when we're talking about the future of society and that's the debate of what makes a society successful. Is it environmental determinism or environmental possibleism? Environmental determinism states that it is the environment that allows the society to be successful. The environment is the number one factor that will allow some societies to thrive and some to fail. Environmental possible-ism will be like, no, whoa, you got it all wrong. That's a factor of the determination of the success of a society, but it's also culture. It's the people living there. People can overcome their environments. We can invent new technologies and new things to overcome some of the environmental challenges we may face. Both of these look at the environment and factor it in, but environmental determinism believes that that's the main reason why a society would succeed, while possible-ism will factor in cultural traits as well. When we're talking about how the environment environment impacts society. But we could talk about economics, job opportunities, culture, and how that changes things, even the layout of cities. All of these we can see the environment shaping, the nature actually changing how society operates. Now again, I realize I'm going really fast, but remember this is a summary video. Also again, make sure you're using that study guide. Now we're on to scale of analysis with 1.6. Geographers love to use data, and one of the important things about using data is understanding which scale to use. For the most part, when we're talking about scale, it's gonna get broken up into four main categories. Our global. our national, regional, and also our local. Talking about scale of analysis, what we're trying to understand is how all this complex data is being grouped together. Scale of inquiry, on the other hand, is trying to determine which scale of analysis would be best for a particular situation. As you can tell, these are pretty similar. But remember, scale of inquiry is focused on question. Scale of analysis is determining how should we group our data together. Let's actually look at a couple different examples to see if you can determine which scale of analysis is being applied. video, complete the table, try to answer it before. Our first map is showing a scale of analysis on the global level. We're not talking about certain nations, we're talking about information that's spread out across the world. Our next scale of analysis we can see is actually looking at Canada and the United States, and it's talking about Norwegians. This scale of analysis is going to be national. The focus is on the different states. We're not looking at the globe, we're not looking at certain regions, and we're not talking about local communities or anything. In this map we can see that the world is being. presented. But this isn't a global Scale of analysis. We could also see different states that are on the map, but it's not a national scale of analysis This is a regional scale of analysis information isn't based on any individual states It's also not focusing on one topic that doesn't take into account where states are this last scale We can see is actually a pretty good example of a local scale here We're focusing just on transportation systems within a certain city Hopefully those examples helped what you also just did right now was practicing your scale of inquiry Remember, we are asking questions of what scale of analysis should be used. One of the things you probably notice is those maps were different levels of zoomed in and zoomed out. Now, this connects to large scale and small scale. The easiest way for you to remember this is when you're thinking of a small scale map, think of a map that's really zoomed out. An example of a small scale map would be a map of the globe. And when you think of a large scale map, think of a map that's zoomed in. The map's actually showing less of the Earth's surface. However, because it's zoomed in, we can see more details. This allows us to get a better idea of what's going on in a particular place. One of the reasons why we change our scale from a large scale to a small scale, or we look at different scales of analysis, is to help us better. understand certain data. Sometimes it helps for us to look at the globe and to try and look at trends across the world. However, when we do that, we start to generalize things more. If I'm looking at a map of the world religions, you're going to see just the main religions across the world. But you can notice there's more than just one or two religions in each country. So depending on what geographers are trying to understand about information or an area, they're going to use different scales to assist them in that. We're now going to move from scale of analysis and we're going to talk about regional analysis. A region is an area that is actually grouped together by perceived or measurable common characteristics. Things like culture, language, actually just the topography of an area. All of these could be used to create a region. And there's a bunch of different... types of regions. Pause this video and answer the table below. Explain the different types of regions. Now the first region is a formal region or it's also a uniform region. Sometimes they'll use these terms interchangeably just to understand they mean the same thing. Here we're dealing with a region that's grouped by perceived characteristics. This one's focused on culture. It's focused on the terrain. It's focused on things that have a common theme. Formal or uniform regions, they're defined. We can see where they end and where- where they start. Examples of this we could look at as states, we could look at it as the winter wheat belt or even the spring wheat belt. All of those would fit as a formal region. Next we have functional regions. Functional regions are also known as nodal regions. Here our region is grouped around a node, a center point, often tied to transportation, communication, or something economic. People gravitate towards the node and that supports the surrounding area, creating the region. Airports, radio stations, subway stations, Disney World, the Mall of America, all of these are great examples of a nodal or functional region. The last one is a vernacular or perceptual region. And here's where we have a lot of debates. This is because these regions exist in our minds and they might be different in someone else's mind. For example, which countries are in the Middle East? Is Egypt part of the Middle East? Is all of Northern Africa in the Middle East? How far does the Middle East go? You can see the problem. One issue with regions is they might be different depending on who you talk to. So regions can get confusing and sometimes regions overlapped on maps and that creates confusing maps that can be harder to decipher. All right, we're on to the last question. How does our regional analysis change as we change our scale? of analysis from the global, the national, the regional, and the local. We can look at regions on a variety of different scales. Remember, as we start to zoom out, as we start to get that small scale, we're not going to have as many details. So if we're looking at the local level, for example, we could apply regional data where we're looking at transportation again, and we can see within a city what's going on. Or we could look at global trade routes. The big thing we really can see is when we change our scale, when we're talking about regions, when we're talking about our or scale of analysis. All of this allows us to view different types of data. And it also allows us to get better understanding of particular areas. You did it geographers, you completed the first unit of AP Human Geography. Okay, okay, so you're not completely done. What I need you to do now is practice. Take the practice quiz for unit one. Also make sure you check your study guide with my key, the keys on that ultimate review package. These videos come with study guides, answer keys, practice tests. Practice full AP tests that you can take once you've gone through the whole course. Vocab lists, concepts, main models you need to know. Seriously, at this point, why are you even still here? This video should be paused. You should be getting that packet. Thanks again for watching, geographers, and I'll see you next time for Unit 2, Population and Migration.

Here you're going to get a study guide that'll go along with this video. Pause this video right now. Once you got it printed out and you're all set up, Unpause it and then let's go through the unit together.

This video is going to summarize all the main concepts. Now it's not going to teach you everything, but it's going to focus on the big things we have to understand and it's going to go along with the AP Human Geography curriculum. Unit 1 starts off with 1.1 where we're going to be talking about maps.

It's an introduction to all these different maps you'll see throughout the course. From there we move into 1.2 where we start to look at geographic data. We'll move over to 1.3 where we'll elaborate on our conversation to understand the power of geographic data.

1.4 where we'll talk about spatial concepts and how things are laid out in the world. After that, it's on to 1.5, where we'll look at human-environment interaction. Then to wrap up this whole unit, we'll look at 1.6 with scale of analysis. and also 1.7 with regional analysis.

This unit's definitely one of the shorter units in AP Human Geography. It only makes up about eight to 10% of the test, but the concepts inside are going to be used a lot in different questions for all the other units. One of the first things that you're gonna notice when taking AP Human Geography is geographers love maps, and they love looking at different data sets. We're gonna be changing our scale all the time to try and find trends and patterns.

And one of the ways we can do this is looking at reference maps and thematic. maps. Reference maps focus on emphasizing the location of places but they don't include data.

Thematic maps still show us the location of a place but now they're actually adding an element to it. They're adding data. Thematic maps normally have a main concept they're trying to convey and so the data is going to be centered around that particular topic.

Like if we are looking at carbon emissions or if we were looking at the amount of educated people within a society. These could be thematic maps that are showing a particular concept. I can't stress this enough. it's really important for you to understand how to read maps. The AP test always asks questions that are using maps.

A lot of times... the maps have the answers right on. Now I need you guys to promise me something. When you get to the AP test or a test in your class, if you see a map, one, check the title.

What is this map trying to convey to you? Two, check the key or that legend. Same thing.

What does the symbols mean? What do the colors mean? What are the ranges? And three, check the question and connect it back to that map. Before you even look at the answers, study that map a little bit.

What is it showing you? The AP test is gonna use a lot of terminology inside there. their questions to see if you're really understanding the concepts.

One of the first concepts we need to understand when looking at a map is the difference between absolute distance and relative distance. Notice I didn't say absolute location and relative location. That's something different.

If a question's asking you about absolute distance, it's trying to see can you see distance in quantitative terms, miles, kilometers, etc. While questions that are asking you about relative distance are talking in more qualitative terms. How far away is it? Oh, it's 30 minutes south.

10 minutes to the west. Those would be more qualitative and would be relative distance. Remember with directions, in order to see if something's north, south, west, east, we have to look at that compass rose.

That's going to show us the directions of the map. Two more concepts that you might see in a question about maps is clustering and dispersal. When you're thinking of clustering, think it's grouped together. We're all in one spot. You're looking at how close things are over a geographic space.

When we're talking about dispersal, dispersed. So dispersal is showing how far things are spread out. Wow.

Lastly, make sure you can understand how to read a topographic map. Sometimes the AP board will ask questions that will use a topographic map to show elevation, where we're trying to see how landforms are changing based on the contours of the Earth's surface. The last part of 1.1 is looking at different types of maps. Now, before we go over the different answers here, I want you to pause this video and fill out the table in the study guide.

Let's see how you're doing. All right, first up, we have the Mercator Projection, and this one was originally used a lot for when we're traveling across the sea. Naval Expedition used this map. because it was so good with directions. It really minimized the distortion that was occurring there.

However, where this projection really falls short is when we're trying to understand the shape and size of land masses. Are you saying the map is wrong? Oh dear, yes. You can see when looking at the Mercator projection, Africa looks pretty small in comparison to Greenland.

Reality is that's not the case. Up next, we have the Goody Homolocene projection. And this one does a great job at showing accurate size and shape of land masses. The biggest drawback of this map is as you can see, it's kind of hard to see everything. And that's because it's an interrupted map.

We actually have parts of the world taken out of it. And the goal of this is trying to minimize distortion. Another example of an interrupted map is the Fuller Projection.

And I'm not exactly sure why, but I always thought this one looks really cool just because it's so different than what we're used to seeing. One of the biggest downfalls is it can be confusing to understand. And exactly what's being portrayed in the map.

Also, if you notice this map can't actually use cardinal directions This would be a terrible map to use for like sea travel or trying to figure out how to get from point A to point B With the Robinson map we can see that some of the distortion actually isn't occurring anymore here. We can see actually a better representation of the size of some of these landmasses. Now one of the issues that this map struggles with is because distortion is spread out so much between all the different aspects, our shape, our size, our distance, that creates distortion on every aspect of the map.

Overall though, it does a pretty good job of showing things. The last projection we're going to talk about is the Winkle Triple projection. And no, that picture is not the Robinson map. They're very similar. Notice when we're comparing them, the Winkle Triple map is actually more rounder in shape.

It's a little bit larger. Here it's trying to handle distortion in another way. Alright, how'd you guys do? If you did well and you're understanding this, then continue with this video. Let's go on to 1.2.

However, if you're struggling a little bit, go back to my YouTube channel and check out some of these videos here. 1.2 is all about geographic data. We'll be looking at how the government uses data, businesses, individuals, organizations. We'll look at how we collect data. And the first thing we have to understand really is what's the difference between qualitative and quantitative research.

When thinking about qualitative research, think about information that's more opinion-based. These are going to be observations we might have. We might witness certain things. Here, it's not necessarily measurable.

Quantitative research, on the other hand, focuses on trying to find concrete facts, looking at data and numbers. When using qualitative research, you're going to be seeing people use surveys. polls, interviews, or even focus groups. Quantitative research, on the other hand, is gonna be using things like the census, research that can be replicated, or simulations that can be replicated, algorithms, and things that are focusing on data collection.

All right, what I want you to do quick is pause. this video you're gonna go down to your study guide come up with an example of data collection for the government businesses and individuals once you're done unpause the video when talking about the government we can see the census is definitely gonna be one of the main ways that they collect data this is done every 10 years and it surveys the entire population. Businesses use surveys and polls and focus groups.

They even use things like the census to be able to determine where they should open new locations. Individuals normally lack capital, so they can't afford to do large studies, but they can afford to do things like surveys and polls. This is an easy way for them to collect quick data, oftentimes surveying the people in their community or their cohorts. The last thing that we have to cover for 1.2 when we're looking at the collection of data and also the application of it is a GIS. This is a geographic information system.

This is a system that analyzes, manages, and displays lots of information on a particular geographic area. Oftentimes this information is collected through GPS, and one of the things that we can create here is layered maps, where we can layer data on top of each other to look for trends. With 1.3 we are elaborating on geographic data. And what I want you to do here is try to complete this section of the study guide before watching the video.

All these concepts we've already referenced. The only one we haven't talked about yet is scale. For scale, we're going to use the scale tool. just remember for now when we're talking about maps, it's the distance ratio that corresponds to the same distance on the Earth's surface. Answer 1.3 once you're done, unpause the video, we'll go over the answer.

When looking at the chart we can see we have personal, business, government, and organization. These are all different scales. On the personal level we can use geographic data to better understand the direction of a community or a city. We could use it to figure out if we want to live in a certain location over another location. This could be done by looking at information about schools or crime rates or even just medium income levels.

All these things can help us make decisions in our own personal lives and it's all geographic data. Businesses on the other hand will use information to better understand their markets they're located in, what products are needed, who are their main customers. At the same time they could use it to determine the location of new stores. Organizations are a little bit different than the other two categories we've talked about because it really depends on the size of the organization.

Here though organizations can use geographic data to better understand the needs of the community. so they can serve them to the best of their ability. The government uses data for tons of things.

Where are we going to have voting districts? How are we going to redistrict these? Where should new schools be placed?

The government uses all this information to make sure they can provide the best services and also take care of all the needs of everyone in the state. The last part of this section of the unit is about the census. Really just explaining what it is. The census is an official count of a population of a country.

Normally it happens every 10 years. It's going to come up in this unit, urban unit. It's going to come up in the...

the industrialization unit, all these different units will have census information. This is how federal funding is determined, how we can start to see where populations are moving. We will redistrict boundaries based off this.

For 1.4, we're talking about spatial concepts. Going back to the start of this video, I mentioned absolute and relative distance. Let's start off by actually explaining the other concept that's very similar, absolute location and relative location. Absolute location, what I want you to think about is like GPS on your phone. It's using longitude and latitude coordinates.

It's the exact spot on Earth. That spot isn't going to change. Relative location, on the other hand, is when we use other objects in the area to describe our location.

For example, you can see right here, I'm by a waterfall with this crazy hat on. This is one of my Where in the World Was Mr. Sin videos. Relatively, I can describe the area around, and that provides you a sense of place for me.

But it doesn't give you the exact spot. When geographers are talking about place, they're talking about the environmental characteristics and also the human characteristics of a certain geographic location. Both of these together create a sense of place.

They create identity for this location that we're talking about. Environmental factors might be the climate of an area. We could look at mountains or rivers. How many trees do they have? Is it flat?

All of these different things would make up the environmental factors of a place. Human characteristics, on the other hand, are going to be things like the religion breakdown of... of this certain location we're talking about, the racial breakdown, gender divide. We could also look at languages.

All these different things would show human characteristics of a place. Now, one of the interesting things that we'll study a lot in AP Human Geography is how do places interact with each other? And we could go back to Tobler, who came up with the first law of geography.

As places spread out or as objects or items spread out, they're less likely to interact with each other. Distance decay is kind of the basis of Tobler's first law. If point A is here and point B is here.

They're more likely to interact than if I was looking at, let's say, point A and point C. Now, many have argued that distance decay is no longer happening as much, and Tobler's first law of geography may be starting to waver a little bit. And that's because of space-time compression. Space-time compression is all about how technology and communication advancements has changed how we interact with different places.

As we've seen these advances happen, we can see that people are now more likely to interact with things farther away. Before we go on to 1.5. I want to quick review a couple different terms.

The first one's pattern which just looks at the geometric arrangement of objects within a space. Now when we're talking about space, which is our next term, we're talking about the gap between different objects. Then lastly we have flow which is just looking at the movement of people, goods, services, and ideas between one place and another.

1.5 is all about human environmental interaction. It's this constant back and forth between the environment and between society. One of the things we have to start with is sustainability. Really what's a sta- Sustainability boils down to is the current generation using their resources in a way that is not damaging the environment for future generations.

Now there's one debate that's come up a lot throughout history when we're talking about the future of society and that's the debate of what makes a society successful. Is it environmental determinism or environmental possibleism? Environmental determinism states that it is the environment that allows the society to be successful. The environment is the number one factor that will allow some societies to thrive and some to fail.

Environmental possible-ism will be like, no, whoa, you got it all wrong. That's a factor of the determination of the success of a society, but it's also culture. It's the people living there.

People can overcome their environments. We can invent new technologies and new things to overcome some of the environmental challenges we may face. Both of these look at the environment and factor it in, but environmental determinism believes that that's the main reason why a society would succeed, while possible-ism will factor in cultural traits as well. When we're talking about how the environment environment impacts society.

But we could talk about economics, job opportunities, culture, and how that changes things, even the layout of cities. All of these we can see the environment shaping, the nature actually changing how society operates. Now again, I realize I'm going really fast, but remember this is a summary video.

Also again, make sure you're using that study guide. Now we're on to scale of analysis with 1.6. Geographers love to use data, and one of the important things about using data is understanding which scale to use. For the most part, when we're talking about scale, it's gonna get broken up into four main categories. Our global.

our national, regional, and also our local. Talking about scale of analysis, what we're trying to understand is how all this complex data is being grouped together. Scale of inquiry, on the other hand, is trying to determine which scale of analysis would be best for a particular situation.

As you can tell, these are pretty similar. But remember, scale of inquiry is focused on question. Scale of analysis is determining how should we group our data together. Let's actually look at a couple different examples to see if you can determine which scale of analysis is being applied.

video, complete the table, try to answer it before. Our first map is showing a scale of analysis on the global level. We're not talking about certain nations, we're talking about information that's spread out across the world.

Our next scale of analysis we can see is actually looking at Canada and the United States, and it's talking about Norwegians. This scale of analysis is going to be national. The focus is on the different states.

We're not looking at the globe, we're not looking at certain regions, and we're not talking about local communities or anything. In this map we can see that the world is being. presented. But this isn't a global Scale of analysis.

We could also see different states that are on the map, but it's not a national scale of analysis This is a regional scale of analysis information isn't based on any individual states It's also not focusing on one topic that doesn't take into account where states are this last scale We can see is actually a pretty good example of a local scale here We're focusing just on transportation systems within a certain city Hopefully those examples helped what you also just did right now was practicing your scale of inquiry Remember, we are asking questions of what scale of analysis should be used. One of the things you probably notice is those maps were different levels of zoomed in and zoomed out. Now, this connects to large scale and small scale. The easiest way for you to remember this is when you're thinking of a small scale map, think of a map that's really zoomed out.

An example of a small scale map would be a map of the globe. And when you think of a large scale map, think of a map that's zoomed in. The map's actually showing less of the Earth's surface.

However, because it's zoomed in, we can see more details. This allows us to get a better idea of what's going on in a particular place. One of the reasons why we change our scale from a large scale to a small scale, or we look at different scales of analysis, is to help us better.

understand certain data. Sometimes it helps for us to look at the globe and to try and look at trends across the world. However, when we do that, we start to generalize things more. If I'm looking at a map of the world religions, you're going to see just the main religions across the world. But you can notice there's more than just one or two religions in each country.

So depending on what geographers are trying to understand about information or an area, they're going to use different scales to assist them in that. We're now going to move from scale of analysis and we're going to talk about regional analysis. A region is an area that is actually grouped together by perceived or measurable common characteristics. Things like culture, language, actually just the topography of an area.

All of these could be used to create a region. And there's a bunch of different... types of regions. Pause this video and answer the table below. Explain the different types of regions.

Now the first region is a formal region or it's also a uniform region. Sometimes they'll use these terms interchangeably just to understand they mean the same thing. Here we're dealing with a region that's grouped by perceived characteristics. This one's focused on culture. It's focused on the terrain.

It's focused on things that have a common theme. Formal or uniform regions, they're defined. We can see where they end and where- where they start. Examples of this we could look at as states, we could look at it as the winter wheat belt or even the spring wheat belt. All of those would fit as a formal region.

Next we have functional regions. Functional regions are also known as nodal regions. Here our region is grouped around a node, a center point, often tied to transportation, communication, or something economic. People gravitate towards the node and that supports the surrounding area, creating the region. Airports, radio stations, subway stations, Disney World, the Mall of America, all of these are great examples of a nodal or functional region.

The last one is a vernacular or perceptual region. And here's where we have a lot of debates. This is because these regions exist in our minds and they might be different in someone else's mind. For example, which countries are in the Middle East? Is Egypt part of the Middle East?

Is all of Northern Africa in the Middle East? How far does the Middle East go? You can see the problem. One issue with regions is they might be different depending on who you talk to. So regions can get confusing and sometimes regions overlapped on maps and that creates confusing maps that can be harder to decipher.

All right, we're on to the last question. How does our regional analysis change as we change our scale? of analysis from the global, the national, the regional, and the local.

We can look at regions on a variety of different scales. Remember, as we start to zoom out, as we start to get that small scale, we're not going to have as many details. So if we're looking at the local level, for example, we could apply regional data where we're looking at transportation again, and we can see within a city what's going on. Or we could look at global trade routes.

The big thing we really can see is when we change our scale, when we're talking about regions, when we're talking about our or scale of analysis. All of this allows us to view different types of data. And it also allows us to get better understanding of particular areas. You did it geographers, you completed the first unit of AP Human Geography. Okay, okay, so you're not completely done.

What I need you to do now is practice. Take the practice quiz for unit one. Also make sure you check your study guide with my key, the keys on that ultimate review package.

These videos come with study guides, answer keys, practice tests. Practice full AP tests that you can take once you've gone through the whole course. Vocab lists, concepts, main models you need to know.

Seriously, at this point, why are you even still here? This video should be paused. You should be getting that packet.

Thanks again for watching, geographers, and I'll see you next time for Unit 2, Population and Migration.

Transcript for:Overview of AP Human Geography Unit 1

Transcript for:
Overview of AP Human Geography Unit 1