World+Geography+SOL

The focus of this course is the study of the world’s peoples, places, and environments, with an emphasis on world regions. The knowledge, skills, and perspectives of the course are centered on the world’s peoples and their cultural characteristics, landforms and climates, economic development, and migration and settlement patterns. Spatial concepts of geography will be used as a framework for studying interactions between humans and their environments. Using geographic resources, students will employ inquiry, research, and technology skills to ask and answer geographic questions. Particular emphasis will be placed on students’ understanding and applying geographic concepts and skills to their daily lives. Geographic skills provide the necessary tools and technologies for thinking geographically. These skills help people make important decisions in their daily lives, such as how to get to work and where to shop, vacation, or go to school. They also help people make reasoned political decisions and aid in the development and presentation of effective, persuasive arguments for and against matters of public policy. All of these decisions involve the ability to acquire, arrange, and use geographic information. Maps, as well as graphs, sketches, diagrams, photographs, and satellite-produced images, are essential tools of geography.
 * World Geography**

a) obtain geographical information about the world’s countries, cities, and environments; b) apply the concepts of location, scale, map projection, or orientation; c) develop and refine mental maps of world regions; d) create and compare political, physical, and thematic maps; e) analyze and explain how different cultures use maps and other visual images to reflect their own interests and ambitions.
 * WG.1** The student will use maps, globes, satellite images, photographs, or diagrams to

surface by a) identifying regional climatic patterns and weather phenomena and their effects on people and places; b) describing how humans influence the environment and are influenced by it; c) explaining how technology affects one’s ability to modify the environment and adapt to it.
 * WG.2** The student will analyze how selected physical and ecological processes shape the Earth’s

a) explaining how characteristics of regions have led to regional labels; b) explaining how regional landscapes reflect the physical environment and the cultural characteristics of their inhabitants; c) analyzing how cultural characteristics, including the world’s major languages, ethnicities, and religions, link or divide regions.
 * WG.3** The student will apply the concept of a region by

regions: Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe, United States and Canada, North Africa and Southwest Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Russia and Central Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, East Asia, Australia and the Pacific Islands, and Antarctica.
 * WG.4** The student will locate and analyze physical, economic, and cultural characteristics of world

human population in terms of settlement patterns and the location of natural and capital resources.
 * WG.5** The student will compare and contrast the distribution, growth rates, and characteristics of

they are influenced by social, economic, political, and environmental factors.
 * WG.6** The student will analyze past and present trends in human migration and cultural interaction as

significance by a) showing their influence on patterns of economic activity and land use; b) evaluating perspectives and consequences regarding the use of resources. History and Social Science Standards of Learning for Virginia Public Schools – January 2008 10
 * WG.7** The student will identify types of natural, human, and capital resources and explain their

economic development to the standard of living and quality of life.
 * WG.8** The student will distinguish between developed and developing countries and relate the level of

a) identifying factors, including comparative advantage, that influence economic activities and trade; b) describing ways that economic and social interactions have changed over time; c) mapping, describing, and evaluating the formation of economic unions.
 * WG.9** The student will analyze the global patterns and networks of economic interdependence by

control of the Earth’s surface by a) explaining and analyzing reasons for the creation of different political divisions; b) analyzing ways cooperation among political jurisdictions is used to solve problems and settle disputes.
 * WG.10** The student will analyze how the forces of conflict and cooperation affect the division and

a) applying the concepts of site and situation to major cities in each region; b) explaining how the functions of towns and cities have changed over time; c) describing the unique influence of urban areas and some challenges they face.
 * WG.11** The student will analyze the patterns of urban development by

future by a) using geographic knowledge, skills, and perspectives to analyze problems and make decisions; b) relating current events to the physical and human characteristics of places and regions.
 * WG.12** The student will apply geography to interpret the past, understand the present, and plan for the