Geography, Diversity, and Personal Interest

As our classes make steady progress on the Geographic inquiry, a familiar theme emerges -Geography is all about diversity. This simple idea of diversity defines geography beyond where something is located. Diversity leads us to ask interesting questions about the world around us, we naturally want to know how and why characteristics differ from place to place.

What a boring world it would be if every location had the same characteristics and all people  shared a similar way of life. Fortunately our landscapes do change from place to place, along with the natural processes and functions or the land and the cultures of people who live there. Students have formulated so many great geographic questions according to their own interests  and spent several classes researching, exploring, and drawing conclusions.

Clear examples of diversity  can be seen in the student research questions. Here are a few examples:

• Why does California have mega-farms and Vermont does not?
  
• Why was Disney World built in Orlando, Florida?
• Why was the Statue of Liberty placed in New York?
• Why do some cities have high crime rates?
• Where are the most shark attacks? Why do they occur more in these locations?
  

So many interesting topics and they are all geographically interesting thanks to our diverse world. Check out my slideshow featuring some of the places I have been, the pictures demonstrate the idea of geographic diversity quite well.  Where have you traveled and  how did it differ from Vermont? Please take a minute to post a comment.