Geography 200

World Regional Geography

Fall 2004

You completed your homework on a computer made in South Korea using software written in India. You sent a letter to your brother stationed in Saudi Arabia and went out for dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant. On the way home you stopped for a newspaper at a local package store run by a nice family of Brazilian immigrants. The front-page stories say that CO2 emissions in England might cause flooding in Guam, that currency devaluation in the Philippines might mean cheaper clothes in Columbus, and that the 6 Billionth person was born recently in India. You sit down for Nicaraguan coffee on your couch made in Sweden and drift to sleep dreaming of a beach in Australia. You’ve had a very global day but you are now very much confused. What do all of these places have to do with one another? What’s going on here that they are so much a part of your daily life? Where is Guam, anyway?!

This class will introduce the trends in population, development, and environment that are occurring in all of these places. Moreover, it will present methods and concepts to help you trace and explain the global and regional processes that drive changes around the world today. By the end of the course, you will be familiar with these methods, concepts, and techniques and you will have a good basic grounding in major trends in the regions of the world. Finally, you will have mastered some basic information about these regions and will be able to locate the important physical and human features of each. More to the point, you will have digested the course’s central theme: that differences between regions and places in the world are created by the very forces that tie those places to one another.

Where:

1184 Postle Hall

When:

TRF 12:30PM-1:48PM

Instructors

• Professor P. Robbins
• 1100 Derby Hall
• (614) 292-6001
• probbins@geography.ohio-state.edu
• Office Hours: M 11:30am-1:00pm (or by appointment)
• Teaching Associate: April Luginbuhl
  • 1131 Derby Hall
  • (614) 292-1357
  • luginbuhl.6@osu.edu
  • Office Hours: W 11am -12 noon; R 2-3pm
• Teaching Associate: Joseph Lewis
  • 1174 Derby Hall
  • (614) 292-2704
  • lewis.844@osu.edu
  • Office Hours: T and R 11am - 12 noon

  Texts

  • 2003. Bradshaw, White, and Dymond. Contemporary World Regional Geography. Boston: McGraw Hill.
  • 2003.  Rand McNally.  Atlas of World Geography. USA: Rand McNally.

  Requirements

  • While attendance will not be taken, it is expected that you will show up for class. Much of the exam material will be based on lecture and ideas raised in discussion. Bringing your text to class won’t hurt either.

  • You are expected to read. Keep up and this will be easy; wait until the night before the exam and it will be difficult.
  • Three exams. These exams will have simple short-answer and "objective" (multiple choice) components but will also include some short essay style questions. Clarity of expression is a factor in assessing these exams.
  • Eight quick map quizzes throughout the quarter at the start of class. The items (physical, social, and political locations) to be located will be identified on an assignment sheet (handed out with practice maps) available from a link on the class schedule at least a week in advance of the quiz date. To prepare for these, use your atlas to locate these places on the practice maps and study the sheet. Group work and study is encouraged here.
  • This course will be fun, though you are not required to have fun. We’ll try to provide a flavor for the places we are studying. You will do best to remain armed with curiosity and enthusiasm for the world.

  Grading Policy

  The final grade is based on the proportion of cumulative points you have earned over the semester. Think of every exam or assignment as an opportunity to earn points.

  There are a total of 400 points, divided over the following:

  Event	Points	Number	Total
  Map Quizzes	10	8	80
  Exams	100	2	200
  Final	120	1	120
  Total			400

  Schedule

  Other Issues