Place

Lesson Plan - Get It!

Audio:

Geography is organized into five themes to make geographical concepts easier to understand and study.

• location
• place
• human-environment interactions
• movement
• regions

This lesson explores place.

Place concerns the characteristics that describe a location. The place can be described using physical characteristics and human characteristics.

Physical characteristics describe things that occur in nature. Climate, animals, plants, and topography can describe a place's physical characteristics.

Trees, mountains, beaches, warm weather, and a large deer population are all physical characteristics.

Most physical characteristics are created naturally but sometimes artificial. For example, a lake might be artificial.

Human characteristics describe the things in a place that man creates.

You are probably thinking of things like buildings, monuments, and modes of transportation. These things are all considered human characteristics.

However, human characteristics can also be things like political systems, religious practices, crime rates, economic systems, and written and spoken language. These systems are also created by man.

Every place can be described using physical and human characteristics. The following is an image of New York City.

• What are three physical and human characteristics shown?

You may have to use some inference skills to generate human characteristics.

When you are finished describing the place, move to the Got It? section to assess what you have learned.