Geog 101 Thoughts and Notes

In class on Tuesday January 26, we will continue our discussion of population dynamics in Europe with a discussion of immigration. But immigration isn’t only a demographic issue, it’s a cultural and political issue as well.
Nothing illustrates this more clearly than the stories in today’s news about a French parliamentary committee’s recommendation that women be [...]

In class on Thursday, we discussed the impact of improved sanitation on death rates in Industrial Revolution Europe. I recommend a fascinating book that is related to this subject; it’s The Ghost Map, by Steven Johnson. The book describes a cholera epidemic in London in 1854, and the work of a maverick physician in figuring [...]

I have just e-mailed a take-home quiz to all members of the class. Please print out the quiz, take it, and turn it in at the beginning of class on Tuesday January 26.
I will periodically send e-mails to all members of the class and some of them, like today’s quiz, will be very important. I [...]

In class on Thursday, I had planned to define the discipline of geography, and discuss its usefulness in helping understand world events.
In view of yesterday’s earthquake in Haiti, I plan to use the disaster as a case study for this discussion, and show how an understanding of geography is essential in making sense of the [...]

Welcome to Thoughts and Notes, the blog site for Geog 101, World Regional Geography.
Since we have to cover the whole world in only 13 weeks, there won’t be time in class to engage in as much discussion as a course like this warrants. That’s the reason for this blog: it’s a place to pose questions, [...]