Outcomes:

After completing this class, students should be able to:

• recognize that contemporary issues of international significance have a spatial component inherent in geographic enquiry, for example, the implications of industrial growth upon carbon dioxide emissions and the apparent effect on global temperatures. Students should be able to write short essays to demonstrate such issues. In-class tests and take-home work will be used as methods of assessment.
• demonstrate in written form the responses that occur in societies from reactions based upon factual information as opposed to reactions founded on opinion. Class discussions will be undertaken to clarify the difference between fact and opinion, for instance the impact upon society of a free press as opposed to a state controlled media limited by the constraints imposed by censorship.
• interpret and analyze through mapping exercises statistical and cartographic information as presented to reflect global issues, for example, demographic trends at local, regional and global scales of enquiry.
• demonstrate in written tests and in class discussion the importance of geographical knowledge and understanding in decision making processes that affect human environments, for instance relationships that exist between nation and state; and the significance of factors of location on ethnic communities in internal conflicts within states and of border disputes between states.
• explain in written form the importance of the physical environment to decision making processes, for instance, the relevance of physical factors in the development of cultural characteristics that mould and help to identify ethnic differentiation as well as cultural unity.
• recognize the importance of the economic resource base in regional development. Students should be able to differentiate levels of economic growth and development within and between places, as well as the ability to recognize the dynamic nature of economic prosperity, stagnation and decline. Short written essays and in-class tests will be used for assessment purposes.
• recognize the impact of the dispersion and diffusion of people as they migrate from place to place, together with the attendant migration of ideas, values and attitudes. The student should be able to identify through both written work and mapwork tests the impact of human migration as well as other movements that involve for example, finance, commodities, ideologies, information and knowledge.
• explain in short essay tests the influence of movements over space and time that are associated with the globalisation of the world economy and the relevance this trend may have on issues at the local level