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I. How To Understand and Interpret the Implications of Associations Among Phenomena In Places
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The concept of place is one of the five fundamental themes. All places on the surface of the earth have distinguishing human and physical characteristics that interrelate with each other. Place is frequently used to talk about the physical landscape, the physical environment, or the cultural environment, but in fact all of these elements interact with each other and give character to a place. For example, the physical geography of a place is influenced by the interaction of the energy balance, the water balance, the hydrological cycle, tectonic cycles, and the erosion cycle. All of these aspects of the physical environment affect each other. The nature of vegetation affects soil fertility and erodability. Animals, solar insulation, and climate all affect the vegetation. Vegetation, in turn -- because of its reflectivity and absorption of energy -- affects ecoclimates. In addition, human elements make up some portion of the landscape. The interaction of culture and the movement of energy and people affect each other and the physical environment. What geographers do is study the interaction of the major elements that give character to a place. So when one is doing geography, one is trying to understand the value of places.
Web Sites
To view the following Web sites, please go to "See also" below.
The Teachers' Corner contains links to suggested Web sites. The College Board neither endorses, controls the content of, nor reviews the external Web sites included here. Please note that following links to external Web sites will open a new browser window. If you discover a link that does not work, please let us know by sending an e-mail to apctechsupport@collegeboard.org.
National Atlas of the United States
The Atlas comes from USGS and "includes products and services designed to stimulate people to visualize and understand complex relationships between environments, places, and people. It contributes to our knowledge of the environmental, resource, demographic, economic, social, political, and historical dimensions of American life." It is also possible to download "layers" from their layer warehouse. The layers are for their map formats and can be used for a variety of higher-level thinking purposes. The layers are for use in their Atlas map viewer.
Atlas Map Viewer
The map viewer seems slow, but has clear directions for use. This is probably as close to online, free GIS mapping as you will get!
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