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Supplemental content is now  available for these courses. >Hello and welcome to Office Hours! I'm Alizé Carrère, host of Crash Course Geography, and for the next hour, we are  here to answer your questions and hopefully, help you study for your Geo finals. <Hello, everyone, I'm April Luginbuhl Mather.

I'm a Geography professor and a consultant  on the Crash Course Geography series. >And April and I just met today for the first time after having worked on this series  for the last 2+ years together, so that's been very exciting to  be in the same room together! Okay, so here's how the  study session is going to go: We've asked you to send in your most  pressing questions ahead of time, which we have with us right here, so we'll go through some of those first. We'll provide a few tips on studying Geography,  and then we'll end with answering  some questions from the chat, which we have right here.

But before we get to your questions,   I want to talk a little bit about our  partner for Office Hours, Flipgrid. Flipgrid is a free video discussion  app from Microsoft with a mission   to make learning fun and empowering for all. It's been used in the  classroom for nearly a decade.

So as we talk about preparing for exams, Flipgrid is a convenient way to host study groups without having to coordinate around class  schedules or after-school commitments, and you can create a group, start a topic,  and send the link to anyone you want to join. You can record video or audio responses,  discuss specific concepts in detail, quiz each other, and prep for group presentations. We hear from Crash Course viewers all the time  how helpful video is as a learning tool -- it's one of the reasons we made Crash Course!

And connecting with peers  and learning in groups with  your peers in a community is a wonderful thing. So, we used Flipgrid to collect some of your   questions for these live  streams, so let's get to that. Alright, April, our first question is: what is geography?
So obviously, Geography is the story of bananas -- or at least it was for us throughout the series -- but those bananas from the first  episode were a really good example because they helped highlight that Geography  is the study of difference across space. It's about understanding the place we're in and  the conditions and connections to other places. The definition of Geography is often  accompanied with the types of questions we ask, like, why do we see this here and not there?

What influence do bananas or  people or rocks have in this place? How do we experience social and  physical phenomena in a place? And these questions are really about the types  of relationships that happen across space. >So, to follow up on that,  Camilla had a related question:  Can you explain "place," "space,"  "territory," and "scale?" And also related, Ava wants to know:  what is "site" and "situation?" So just to recap, what are "place," "space,"  "territory," "scale," "site," and "situation?" <Okay, so all of those topics, we've touched  on in some way throughout the series.

They're all related to these  key geographical concepts. So let's-- if we just look at the relationship  between "space," "place," and "location," that's sort of the beginning of geography. So "location" is just where something is.

We can give "absolute  location," which is a definite   place, like latitude or longitude or an address, but "relative location" starts to get into   the meaning behind a place or the parts  that would be particular to an individual. So for example, in my classes,  I often will have my students   give me the location of their  favorite place on campus. And I asked them to give me  both the absolute location,   which i could type in my phone right there, but then also the relative location, which  is something only they can say to me.

It's just how getting there works for  them, and the relationship in their mind. So it might be like turning  after a particular cafe, or y'know, noting certain landmarks  on the way to that location. >Right, so that's like the mental map that we   talked about in episode 2 if  any of you guys remember that. My mental map that was described in my hometown. <Exactly, exactly.

And so related  to that is this idea of "site." And "site" is just the local  conditions of something in a space, like describing that my main campus  is located next to a public park, it's at the intersection of two major roads, it happens to have retention ponds that I think   look like are carved in the shape  of our initials for our school, and it's near a large population. It has all the things that make  that a good location for a school. And after thinking about "location," I also  like to think about "space" and "place," which means thinking about  conditions and relationships.

And we've spent a lot of time  on that throughout the series-- >Definitely.
So it was a connection between mines and  rivers and lakes and then roads and rail,   and that creates the situation  that made locating in that space   and relating to other spaces  globally worked the way that it did. If we're measuring the connections between  space, that's called "topological space," that can include things  like routing and planning-- >Mmhmm (affirmative),
And that's that fourth aspect of "space,"  that individual perception of space and place. Let's see, so the final term  on that list was "scale." >"Scale," okay, that's right.
So if we go back to bananas in episode 1, we described all the connections that made  bananas a common fruit in U. S. grocery stores. We looked at local conditions, and we also  looked at more national and global conditions.

So defining "space" and  how we relate across space,   is really a large part of what geographers do. And we see that in Human Geography,  and like how politics might make it  hard to cross borders or trade bananas, and we see that in Physical Geography when  we study how plants move across ecosystems. And again like we saw in episode  48, we got into things like   how there might be friction as we cross space, and how that might be declining over-- as forms of transportation change.

Kind of like the speed at which  we could order your rat hammocks. >[laughs] That's right, that's right. In case anyone's wondering, I do actually have two pet rats  and they do sleep in hammocks. Their names are Alfonso and Romeo and they sleep in fleece hammocks.

So that's where that little bit came from in case  anyone was wondering why we made that reference. There were a few different personal things  that were integrated into the show if   any of you caught on to that. <Well, because we all experienced  geography, even in our rat hammocks. >Yes, even in our rat hammocks.
We're a discipline that's studying  relationships between people and places, and those relationships include  physical and social processes and human and non-human actors. More succinctly, we often say in  Geography: we're studying what is where,   why it's there, and how it's changing. >Got it. So, one of the next  questions we're gonna cover   is related to potentially our rock  episode, which was very popular. "How do different types of rock form, and how do  they lead to different kinds of mineral reserves?" This is a question from Pranjal. <Alright, so minerals are natural substances made  up of abundant elements in the earth's crust, like silicon and oxygen, and it can  be coupled with metallic elements   like iron, calcium, sodium,  potassium, and magnesium.

And all of them are solid crystals with  fairly specific chemical compositions,   and they're the building blocks of rocks. So really we have elements, which  make up minerals, which make up rocks. There's maybe 4-5,000 different  minerals in the earth's crust,   and each kind forms under particular  conditions in particular places.

So they tell us a lot about the history of  the geological environment where we find them, but there's really only about  30 minerals that are widespread and make up most of the rock-forming  materials that are commonly found. The rest are only easy to see when they're   found concentrated in certain  places by geological processes, and those concentrations are  interesting to us because   we extract metals from these  concentrations in these ores. Mineral crystals are formed  really in 4 different ways: So when hot molten rock cools and crystallizes, from chemicals dissolved in watery liquids, when existing materials are altered chemically, and when rocks go through metamorphosis  and existing minerals undergo changes   in temperature and pressure, so  either being squeezed or heated.

And minerals which contain enough  metal or material for it to be   easily extracted are called "ore minerals." So for example, we talked about iron ore, and  that comes mainly from hematite and magnetite. And the mineral must contain  sufficient concentrations for   the material metal to form an ore, and the mineral must be sufficiently concentrated  in the ground to be worth extracting. >Right. Got it. Great question! <Alright, so Alizé, I have a question here   for you. >Okay. <Now, I know you have--  that you have stood on the  edge of an active volcano. >That is true. Great question.

Okay, so yes, I have indeed   been on the edge of an active volcano. A few years ago, I was on the edge of Mount  Yasur volcano in Vanuatu in the South Pacific, while it spewed lava as the sunset. And it was a pretty remarkable experience.

We were safe, it was not a situation where  it was dangerous to be standing there, but it was pretty impressive to kind of feel-- coming up through your chest, like,  what was happening under your feet. It was a really physical experience. But let's get to the question-- So to answer it, how humans respond to earthquakes  and volcanoes is part of hazard studies.

There are some interesting developments in trying   to understand things like volcanic  eruptions like we saw in episode 21, and how scientists try to monitor gases or use satellites to monitor surface temperature to get an idea of what the volcano's doing. For earthquakes, it's a lot  harder to predict them precisely,  like a specific time, location, and magnitude. But we can look at trends and conditions  that make earthquakes probable, and in those places, there can be early warning  systems to give people a small window of warning, like in Japan and in the U.

S. Though that is usually a very,  very small warning window. So with earthquakes, a more effective response   is being mindful of earthquake risk when  building up the environment, for example.

And as we saw in Fez in episode  46, if you guys remember,  and as you can also see across Asia, there are building styles that  sort of work with seismic activity,  to some extent, obviously, like, mindful building techniques,  and thinking about how we live with   whatever tectonic motion is  common in that specific area. So there's your answer to  volcanoes and earthquakes,   to the extent that we can prepare for them. So now I have a question, another question, let's see where we are now.

Okay, this next question has to do with rivers: how is a meander formed? and that's from Bats. Thank you, Bats. <So, if we look at a river on any map,  it's really unusual to see a straight river   happen without human interaction. So most natural streams will wander,  and when they wander they  form these sinuous bends, And the bends are what are called "meanders." So meanders are a good example of  that close relationship between   water flowing, and water flow processes, and then landform production.

We know-- we sort of understand how meanders form. And the ultimate cause of why  they mander isn't exactly clear, but one school of thought is that meanders  get their start with the development of pools, which are the deep parts that  occur after-- or like at the bends, and then the riffles, which are the  shallows that happen between bends. Pools and riffles, remember those. >Pools and riffles, great words.
And then the next step is that there's this  helical flow, it's sort of like a corkscrew, where the surface water of the meander  tends to flow toward the outer bank, while the bottom water kind of  flows towards that inner bank, so you've got sort of this  crossing motion that can happen. And then we keep track of a few different things: so the distribution of energy within that river --that flow, that helical flow -- and then the role of erosion, and sediment load and deposition. And so there seems to be a consensus that  meandering is caused by instabilities   of turbulent water against channel banks, and that causes erosion and movement. and meanders will develop  best in like granular beds,  and can occur in streams of  all sizes and at all altitudes.

And those meanders, they aren't  really caused by like obstacles. It's really more of that erosional action. And sometimes it seems like obstacles, like  something that isn't going to erode as well, that actually will prevent the  full development of a meander. >Good question.

Okay. <Alright, so you grew up in the Finger  Lakes region in New York state, didn't you? >I did, I did on Cayuga Lake,  one of the Finger Lakes. Indeed. <So, we have a few questions about glacial   features. >Okay. <So, the first one comes from Jemimah: what's the origin and formation of fjords? >Okay, great. Jemimah, thank you for the question. So, fjords are created from submerged  u-shaped valleys called "glacial troughs." The valleys had been occupied by  glaciers that eroded their walls and scraped away loose  sediments and rock to form these  kind of broad, steep-sided  valleys that are now flooded.

They're u-shaped, as opposed to  the v-shape of river valleys, and they become inlets of the sea  and develop distinctive coastlines, as in, for example, Norway and  South Island in New Zealand. Okay. Hi again, Bats!

Great question, fantastic. Okay so, terminal marines are  depositional features formed by glaciers. And I got to see one, in-- I  was in Iceland getting to be   kind of along some glacial landscapes.

So we know that glaciers excavate a  great deal of material as they move, so when this material is  unsorted and unstratified,   it's a jumbled mixture of  stones of different sizes set in a finer mass of clay, silt, or sand. It's called "glacial till." And so "marines" are usually  composed of glacial till, and it's the name for specific landforms  produced by the deposition of these sediments. We have some examples of these in  episode 26, if you guys remember.

And depending on where the marine is deposited, we can get "lateral," meaning on the side, "medial," which is when lateral marines join, or there's many other types of marine deposits. So when eroded debris is  dropped at the edge of the ice,  we get a "terminal" marine, so it marks the furthest point  that a glacier has advanced. And then when the ice disappears, the marines form a belt of ridges and hills.

So, hope we got your question there. Alright, we have another one, but  this time we are now heading over to   some Human Environment Geography questions. And these-- we got some great  questions in this half of the series -- as you all remember, we had  Physical for the first half,  and Human Geography for the second half.

So April, we're going to start  with one question from Anurag. And Anurag asks: how can mountain ecosystems   be restored from the negative impact  of development initiatives and tourism? That is a big question. <It's a good question.

But alright, so first let's define what we mean by "negative impact of development initiatives  and tourism in mountain ecosystems." So the bulk of environmental  destruction or degradation   seems to come from a few different sources, like commercial timber harvesting, diversion of water in rivers for hydropower, construction of roads and other infrastructure, commodification of agriculture and cash farming, mining, and mass tourism. I mean, that's a wide range. And they have   overlapping, cumulative, multi-scale problems, like soil erosion and air and water pollution.

So a few things to keep in mind when  considering the question of mountain ecosystems, is that, when we talk about like  the physical formation of mountains, some of those physical processes are in common, but the actual locations have very unique and  sensitive climate and other environmental factors. And then on the human side, the people  who live in those mountains are all different people with different  systems that they are working in, and so it's hard to create one solution  for a mountain ecosystem broadly, because it's very place-dependent on  those physical and human conditions. >Yeah. Right, very diverse.
And it's that scale thing, y'know,  shifting from large-scale--  like large-scale power to local communities, and local-- thinking about like power generation,  even from large-scale power generation  projects to small-scale ones the local community and their own needs  and values really need to be part of   any kind of mountain restoration  plan that should be enacted >Sure, yeah, absolutely. And since we're talking about the Himalayas,  let's go to another related question that came in: How will the melting of Himalayan glaciers   have a far-reaching impact on  the water resources of India?
The water towers of Asia are  sometimes called the "third pole," because the glaciers and the snow and ice  cover of that region and other mountain ranges, or ranges around the Tibetan Plateau, are the 3rd largest potential  ice mass in the world by volume. And those glaciers feed 10 of  the great rivers of the region. And together, that whole system provides  water to about 40% of the planet's population.

So the loss of ice in that region-- anywhere, but especially in that region-- is of grave concern. When we lose that kind of ice, we're threatening things like the socio-economic  stability of the region, potential hydropower, agriculture irrigation, which then  feeds into food security issues, there can be cultural impacts, as well. So, for a geographer, we want to understand  who will be impacted by ice loss, and that really is part of a larger  exploration of water-society relations,   so again that human environment.

And geographers and other  studies-- or other scientists, when we try to study this,  we're looking at things like watershed management, and issues around things like water rights, and who can access water, and how do factors like class and  gender and race play into that, who has access to ownership and control, where is their conflict over access to water, and then things like hydropower  development and social conflicts, and even our agricultural practice-- they can all affect the water supplies that  are available in a glacier-fed watershed. And understanding all those factors is important,  not just for reducing the  problem of mountain water, but because we can think about  that problem not just as,  "Oh, it's a climate change problem" or "Oh, it's an environmental problem," but we can, again, get to that holistic-- it's not just about solving that one problem,  but it's connected to other  things happening in our society. So restoring a mountain ecosystem, how is that related to things like  tourism and population change, urbanization, deforestation, all of these different factors...

And that's all hard enough  to do just in one country,  but that water-society  relationship across the Himalayas, that has a lot of potential for  international conflict as well,  because you are crossing a  whole lot of boundaries there. >Yeah, absolutely. I hope--- hopefully, through the series, you got to see all the connections between-- yeah, between these different-- Nothing in isolation, essentially. We are all connected-- and time! [both laugh] Okay.

All this talk about water. Yes, my favorite. <So, we've been talking about the way  humans interact with the environment, and that leads really well  into this next question.  Joe wants to know: what is post-humanism? >This is a great question, Joe.  And we didn't talk about  post-humanism in the series. There's a lot of things we  weren't able to talk about,  there was /so much/ we wanted to fit in!

But this is a really, really great question. So I'm gonna   share a little bit about post-humanism for you and  for anybody listening on the livestream right now. So post-humanism is a lens for exploring the world that tries to center the non-human,  rather than the human experience.

So when we explore the interaction  of the environment and society, there are a number of world views we can use  when we think about those interactions that   April's been kind of talking about. So post-humanism is compatible with ideas  like ecological design, for example, which is what we talked about in episode   49, and that's something that I  currently am studying for my PhD. That was-- I think that was maybe my  favorite episode of the whole series.

I tweeted about that because I just  thought that was just so awesome. And maybe I'm a little biased because I'm  currently deep in that world right now, but I think there's nothing better than  trying to think about our future cities   and dwellings and what that might look like. But in any case, all of that is the idea of trying  to make the human-built environment sort of mimic, or be kind of, you know,  compatible with non-human systems.

But it's also a part of [oops, excuse me] part of a longer legacy within  Geography called "Critical Geography." So within Critical Geography,   there are multiple lenses that look  at all aspects of the human experience in these kind of non-dominant ways. So feminist geographies and  post-modernism, for example, opened up geographic inquiry to looking at  the multiple ways a place can be experienced and not just by the dominant group. So Critical Geography is a form of  inquiry that involves deconstructing what are /our/ accepted social norms, so that we can see what assumptions  we're using to build our realities, our expectations, or what  we would consider "normal." Critically examining our geographic assumptions  involves asking the question, basically: "Are we building places that privilege a  particular class or gender or ability?" So in the case of post-humanism,  we ask the question: are we privileging human ideas  of growth and economic success, or maybe, are we considering alternatives that  allow for the non-human to have a say, somehow.

And, of course, that opens up one  of my favorite theoretical doors: who speaks for nature, and are humans natural? Which we don't really have  time for right now [laughs]  <That's a whole different, that's  a whole different class [laughs] >Yeah, yeah, one day.  But the search for "who can speak"  relates to this idea of "agency." So "agency" is the power to act freely in a space, and as geographers, we like to examine  agency by asking questions like: who has power in the relationship  to build and identify space? --and we covered that in some of our episodes-- or, can humans create space specifically  for humans and non-humans to both thrive? or, will we observe and respond to what  non-humans indicate helps and hurts them, or will we create spaces for humans and then try  to address select species that are in distress? So you can see how complicated  some of these questions get.

But ultimately, planning for the whole ecosystem  yields a greater benefit for everyone, I think. A lot of people would probably agree with that. And we don't fully understand the  interconnectedness of all species and how important each species is on  the ecosystems we all rely on today.

I think that's still something we're understanding  and appreciating and building awareness around, because we are living in one of Earth's mass  extinction events during a climate crisis, so just the two of those things together  create just an incredible urgency for humans as a species to prioritize  more holistic approaches to ecosystems, if for no other reason than our own survival. But some critical and post-humanist  geographers argue that in order for us to live out  these holistic ecosystem ideals, we first have to address the  inequalities perpetuated between humans, --and obviously, that's, um, enormous-- so we need to address racial and gender prejudice, along with the marginalization of indigenous  and non-western knowledge and traditions. So the argument is that, until there's space for  /all/ humans to have respect, dignity, agency... trying to make space for the non-human  won't be particularly successful either.

So as we look to the climate  that will be more harsh, climate change coming down the pike, and our ability to adapt to that change  will likely connect to the ability of   the whole ecosystems around us to adapt as well. That's something I've been studying quite  a bit before I came to Crash Course, I was looking at what human  adaptability looks like, certainly in relation to each other, as humans, but also in relation to kind of our-- more broadly speaking, our  environment and our surroundings. So like other mass extinctions, we're  likely to see a dramatic shift in how   the biological and climate  systems of our world work.

So a little bit on post-humanism, thank you, Joe. We will-- if you want some more follow-up on that, we'll try and find some time. Okay, so, we have another question.

This is for April. (let me get to my page...) Okay, this is a great question. April, who are significant geographers to you?
I'm glad you're asking "to me" because there's no way to like, identify significant geographers to everyone. I guess I can name a few  that have stood out for me. Yeah, every place has such a different history and a different set of academic influences, but for me, geographers like David Harvey  >Yes.

I'm reading a lot of David Harvey  these days, so I very much appreciate that. <[laughs] I like how your work overlaps  with what I've studied in my own time. >[laughs] yeah
Becky Mansfield, Paul Robbins  were also geographers that   hugely influenced how I see the world and how I think about how humans relate  to each other and space and non-humans. And then it could be a long list,  I think, of geographers like   Julie Guthman, Doreen Massey,  James McCarthy, James Scott, those were all people that I have learned-- I've read their work and used that to learn about  power and place and activism and agriculture And then there are other geographers  that have just been leaders. People like Janice Monk and   Patricia Solís, Susan Hanson, Audrey Kobayashi, Sally Horn, and Susan Cutter, a couple others that stand out to me that-- both from their work and also just trying to talk to scientists and non-scientists  about the importance of geography >Yeah. Before them, yeah. Okay, so.

Next, we have a question about boundaries. So April, Oscar asks if you could please  explain the different types of boundaries. <Okay, alright. So boundaries delineate territory.

And I think at some point someone  asked about territory as well. So, often when we're talking about "territory,"  we're talking about "sovereign territory," which just means it's an area that a  government has political control over. And so boundaries can move  kind of all over the place,  and we saw that both in episodes 35 and 37.

But we can think about  boundaries in two big categories: the first are physical boundaries, and those are boundaries that are  formed around a physical feature, like maybe a mountain range or a riverbed. We have seen places where like,   mountain boundaries become the  location that will define that border. But then there's the second type, that is what   we call "geometric boundary,"  or a boundary that is drawn.

And today that boundary is drawn  usually with some sort of survey method or some other kind of legal measurement that  will define a boundary in a binding sort of way, usually using maybe latitude and longitude  or some other agreed-upon coordinate system. So when a geographer thinks about boundaries we   like to look at the processes  that created those boundaries. So if we think about like, episode 35, we talked a lot about superimposed borders, or borders that someone else gave to a place,  and you see that in a lot of  former colonial boundary cases.

There's also like antecedent boundaries, and those are boundaries that came before --that "ante" means "prior to" -- and the antecedent boundary is one that predates  cultural development around a particular boundary. So again, mountain boundaries  often are antecedent. They are places where hundreds of years ago, state leaders wouldn't have wanted to defend  that territory beyond the mountain range, so that just sort of became their border.

Sometimes, like, the Pyrenees Mountains or the   Andes Mountains are often given  as common examples for that. Then you've got relic boundaries, and those also are sort of historical, you can think back hundreds of years over those, but those no longer act as a boundary. But you can still see their  imprint in the cultural landscape.

So common examples for that would be like, the divide between North and South Vietnam, or even the Berlin Wall. Those are all relics. And then the final category  is "subsequent boundaries,"  and those are boundaries that come  after a change, or subsequently.

And those often are new boundaries, so they tend to divide things like, a more current boundary would be something like  the boundary between Sudan and South Sudan. That is a subsequent boundary,  and it resulted from a series of civil wars and then the negotiated peace process. >Alright, I think I have one for you now. You okay, Stan? [laughs] [Stan offscreen] Sorry >Stan's coughing in the background, making sure he's okay [laughs] [laughs] <Alright, here's one.

So we have a question about development. What are some of the markers of development? >Okaym that is a great question. And development, as perhaps some of  you might remember from episode 40, we talk a lot about development and some of the-- some of the problematic parts of that word.

So if you go back to episode 40,   one thing that we tried to highlight  was that development is hard to define. We can't just look at the technology  someone uses and know kind of   how so-called developed the place they're in is. The concept of "development" is  socially constructed, so it can mean   a lot of different things to  people in different contexts.

So when trying to think about "development," try and pull back from the idea of declaring how so-called "developed" a place is, and instead,  focus on what /specifically/  you're trying to measure. So for example, do you just want to know  about how much money people earn on average, or are you more interested in how  educated a population is, for example? And that specificity is always super helpful, so like if you are looking for GDP, or if you mean GDP when you're  talking about development,  you can say that.

And if you're trying to say  that a country is advanced   in technology or education, you can say that too. But the key is to understand that the story is  always complicated in in how we talk about that. So few places, for example, have uniform access to resources, like we highlighted in episode 40  with the example of the United  Arab Emirates and Lebanon.

Or a country can have high GDP  or human development statistics, but that might hide the uneven access to  resources people within that country have. So not every country with a high GDP will rank as  having the highest human development indicators, like education or health care. And also think about why  you're talking "development." So when possible, if you're able  to have discussions of development   in context, that's very helpful.

So what are the political and economic  forces that create a GDP situation? Was the country in question a colony? Was it call a colonizer?

Has there been international  encouragement of a secondary or   a tertiary economy for this country or not? So "development" shouldn't be used  to say something about a people, but instead about the conditions  people are trying to live within. So that's sometimes a helpful way of looking at   this kind of complicated and  messy word of "development." It's all about the relationship!

We'll keep coming back to that, exactly. Okay, so where are we now... Also what time is it?

It is 8:40, perfect. > I think we're in good time. Looks like there might be quite a  few questions coming in on the chat. So we've just got basically I think... is it really?

Yes! We've got one more question, and this  one came from Flipgrid from Leah. Okay, so this is great because April, of course,  teaches Geography, and Leah wants to know: What is generally in a Geography course?

What are the main things that are studied? Leah is currently taking  a World History course and   asks how are the two topics related to each other. It's a great question.
So for example,   I mean some people will say that Geography  and History, you have to have them both-- you can't actually have one without the other, because History looks at events over time, and then Geography looks at events over space. So to get the whole picture,  you have to have them together. And Geography is related to the  physical sciences that way as well; classes like Geology -- we've had many   Geology-related questions  today -- and Biology too.

And I often will have  students tell me after class,  "Oh, we're talking about this  topic in my other class," so there's an overlap there, but Geography brings   that unique perspective of looking  at the topic at hand over space, and really those relationships across space. So you could find in a Geography class, especially with that World History overlap, maybe topics of political and economic geography, >Mmhmm [affirmative] definitely <you'll definitely find those  in a World History class. And honestly, it impresses  me so much how many times   I reference the aftermath of WWII or the Cold War >Mmhmm [affirmative], yeah
So knowing the history of a place, whether  it's local or global, is really important and Geography helps put that  History into that context. >Episode one, about bananas! <[laughs] yes, a lot of bananas! >There's a lot of history in there, I think. Everyone's all thrown off, maybe,  by how that episode first began,   but it's like, you gotta know all the context! <Yes, so if you were to sign  up for a Geography class,  it's going to cover a wide range of topics. If you're thinking about taking  maybe an AP Human Geography class   in a secondary school here in the U.

S., that class is going to focus  more on Human Geography, so topics like: how do we define culture? how does culture and language  and art and architecture diffuse? Diffusion's a big one. Economics,   trade relationships between regions and  between countries, population dynamics, and then things like regional conditions  that'll prompt demographic change.

But if you're taking a Physical Geography course, you're more likely to learn  about those interconnections   between different physical systems. So things like the rock cycles and the processes that form rocks, and how that formation of rocks impacts  soil development and then mining industries and where certain structures are located. Or maybe atmospheric properties, like the geographic study of weather and climate and the intersection between the  biosphere and the atmosphere.

Or you have biogeography, which is the  study of species distribution and migration. And all of that would be part of an  Introduction to Physical Geography course. If you're at the university level,   it's good to check with either the  instructor or your course description just to see what that intro course might cover.

Some courses that are listed as "Intro to  Geography" will cover both Human and Physical, some just do Human. I teach-- you also might enter-- you might find an Environmental Geography course, which that's a lot of what I teach, and i like that class because it  blends the Physical and the Human. You have to understand those physical processes   to then be able to talk about  how humans do that interacting.

Let's see, other common classes you might run  into are things like World Regional Geography, and in that class, you will examine physical and  human situations for various regions in the world and those classes usually  look at maybe regional culture   and history in addition to  that physical situation. And then there's Weather and Climate classes, and that's a very common introductory class, and that was actually my first  geography class in college. >Oh really? Amazing. You won't regret it!
Alizé, I think you should tell all of us, how do you study for your geography exams? >So it's been a while... [both laugh] >But okay, this is a great question!  So we just want to offer some  study tips for geography. So as April has mentioned many times, and as the series kind of-- what we hope you'll take away from it is  that geography is all about relationships. So when learning vocabulary,   I think it's important to try and  learn an example to go with it.

And this is something we tried to  do a lot of throughout this series, grounding some of these concepts  and ideas in specific places. And so as you learn that example, identify the different relationships   that that example embodies. So again, always looking for the  connections, the relationships.

And remember that geography has  those three general parts, right? physical, human, and the  human-environment interactions. I almost was waiting to like,   hear you all say that. [both laugh] >and it's just silent Physical, human, [both] and human-environment interactions. So as you think about your examples, think about how that example   relates to the physical processes  /and/ the social processes, so both, and then how the two relate to each other.

And I know it might take a little extra  time when you're studying to do that, but I promise it will make specifically  your essay questions much better. I would also add that when studying  for a geography class or exam, it's important to sit with an atlas and  trace the places being discussed on the maps. So look at what's there, what's around that  specific area or site that you're looking at, and this is important because it'll  help build your mental map of the world, which we talked a lot about  mental maps in this series, but that mental map will help you  make sense of concepts and ideas and kind of understand the contextual  connections between different events.

Also, build a mental library of the distribution  of the kind of basic patterns of things like global temperature, pressure,  precipitation, landforms,   population distribution, things of this nature, and tie those patterns back  to the broader processes that   form those patterns in those in those places. So just a few little tips, again,  if you've got questions let us know. Speaking of questions, we're going  to head over to the live Q&A,   because I think a lot of people  have been putting in some questions.

Please feel free to also ask us  not just geography questions,  but also if you have any burning  questions about how the series was made, as you all know we did this during a pandemic, we filmed it in my living room in Miami. It was an incredible and very  global experience via the interwebs, so we had a lot of fun doing it  and a really amazing team that--  so many people were behind this series, so please feel free to ask questions about that, we would certainly be open to sharing anything  on that front as well at the end of the day. Behind-the-scenes moments are always fun.

So let's answer a few questions from the chat. What do we have coming in? Yeah, I can we if we unplug it Okay, so...  I'm gonna let you look at these with me Why do you personally find Geography interesting?

Let's take that question. <Oh, because it's the study of everything.  In all honesty, that's how  I came into this discipline. I couldn't pick. I couldn't pick one topic that  I just wanted to know about that one thing.

I was always interested in so many topics, and then I discovered there was a  whole discipline that encourages that --because again, we're about those  relationships and connections-- and it was so encouraging to realize  there was a place for someone like me. And that's the great thing, if you put geographers  together we all study very different things. Like we seem to have things in  common, but yet not perfectly  >Yeah, right.
And I see geography as a  discipline that really helps to-- we're a good problem-solving  discipline because we're all about   those disparate ideas coming  together to make connections and in this day and age, we need problem-solvers. >Yeah, my answer that question is that  I love it because I find  it very interdisciplinary, and I think, I mean a lot of my  training over the years has been very-- from an interdisciplinary angle. But to April's point, it's about looking  at how everything relates to one another, and I just feel like so many of the problems that  we're facing today are so complex and intertwined that trying to solve for one side without  solving for the other 50 is both difficult and it requires this holistic thinking. And so for me, Geography offers a  really powerful way of capturing that-- capturing that, or at least those lines  of inquiry kind of head in that direction.

We have a question from Adam

Carmen: "How do you talk to students about the politics   of maps and how they don't tell us everything?  Thanks for the series, that was awesome!" Thank you, thank you, Adam! Great question. <Yeah! And I love talking about maps, I love reading maps, maps are fun. But I approach it from a data literacy standpoint, and I teach it alongside lessons that I design around data literacy. We have to read maps just like we would  read a news article or data in a table... >graphs, yeah. <yeah,   like you really do need to understand the context The quintessential book that is referred to is called "How to Lie with Maps" and the nice thing about that book is, it really is a media literacy read.

You're learning: how are you discerning  the media that you're consuming?   And again, remembering that  maps are written for a purpose. So if you do nothing else, identify what the  purpose the map maker had when they made that map, and then only use that map for that purpose, and we tend to not always do that. And that starts to become that slippery slope  when a map stops being true to what it was for and starts maybe telling us a weird story.

Oftentimes, if we go back and say, "Okay, well what was the original intent? Where did the data come from?" And that does take a little  extra work on our part, but again that media literacy,  data literacy, geographic literacy, those are incredibly important things  to be global citizens right now. Those are things that are worth the time, in my opinion. >Yeah, I was going to say that it's a  good reflex to have in general, I think, to kind of think about the  perspective that it's coming from.

Let's see, what else... <Oh, alright. So here's a question from

Trevin: Do you know how governments manage  where to put people who  have been displaced by war, natural disasters, changing coastlines, etc.? There is not one thing for that. There is--oh let's see, sorry, as i'm getting caught up here... [Stan, offscreen] We've got Zora's answer pulled up here I'll let you hold that [laughs] There were many of us on the show
So like, where do people go when their homes and livelihoods have been destroyed? They may be internally displaced, they might be part of international migration-- people are often forced to  migrate to distant cities  and that adds to congestion in the cities. And wars, in particular, can  create additional complications because the chain of migration is  not going to necessarily work well.

People might get stopped along the way, and then the question becomes: will a host country even accept  someone who is migrating? And that really depends on where that person is from, where they're going to, what the politics around the given event is... And so when we think about displaced peoples,  we really also need to be  having conversations about what is the capacity for that, and how do patterns of people moving-- what are the existing patterns? where are there problems with that movement, and how can we prepare for changes in those migration patterns? >Yeah, and something just to add to that: in my research lab at the University of Miami, there's a lot of conversation around what happens when a climate disaster takes place.

Where do people-- like, where do people go? How can you get ahead of some of that? Are questions of retreat appropriate?

It's complicated. And trying to be proactive instead of reactive, how do we make-- strike that balance? So it's a com-- it's a great question; It's a complicated one.

I think that there's a lot of  conversation happening right now, recognizing what's coming down the pike for a lot of us around the world. Great question. <Alright, let's see... How do metamorphic rocks form? >From Jimmy.
Let's see... So metamorphic rock is one  of the three types of rock. And when we have mountain-building processes,  that involves a great deal of  pressure and high temperatures, and those extreme conditions will transform   igneous or sedimentary rocks  into metamorphic rocks, right?

That "metamorphic" part means "to change,"  so any rock, even metamorphic  rock, can be transformed and undergo physical or chemical changes with enough pressure and temperature change. >I think we maybe have time for one more question, we've got a few more minutes left. <Let's see... >Oh, great! I was wondering, what about careers for  those that have a Geography sub-discipline? Yeah, people who--  Yeah, careers for people who  go down the path of Geography!

It's a great question.
Things we highlighted, like urban planning--  my bachelor's degree was actually in   Urban and Environmental Planning, and I could have used that to become an  urban planner or an environmental planner. So you see geographers working in  departments of neighborhood development, too, at least here in the United  States, and there are comparable   positions to that in other countries, as well. So those are a few that come  to mind very quickly, lots--  you see people throughout things like  our Environmental Protection Agency, >Yeah, I was just going to say, some policy, policy-oriented.

Geographers end up working  alongside geologists sometimes,  if they're more geomorphology oriented, so they might be working  either in mineral extraction,  but also understanding  things like geologic history. We had a conversation earlier about things like   even environmental anthropology,  which is a tangent to geography, but not at the same time. >Yeah, and I think one of the  things that I was saying earlier  about why i love Geography is the interdisciplinary nature of Geography is also what makes it a profession. It's a career path that will-- could put you in many different places, and I think that's really-- I think that's so exciting, today.

I think there's a lot of employers who  are looking for that interdisciplinarity, and that training of seeing  across different disciplines, having conversations with  people who speak a different   language-- professional language than you. So, for me, I think that the job market for these  sorts of interdisciplinary social-environmental   career paths is on the rise for sure, and  we even see that reflected in, for example, I'm in a Ph. D. program that is an  interdisciplinary science and policy program, and that's all we do.

We always are looking at like, how is the science  connecting to people and policy? And how do those decisions then   get brought into the public sphere  and debated and integrated in society? So I think there's just an  explosion of these types of-- Yeah, the interest and the opportunities for jobs for people who have that kind of geographical   background and knowledge around  different systems and places.

Great question. Okay, I feel like that was a  really good place to end the Q&A, So I think we'll start to transition out, here, but I want to thank you all so much. This has been really wonderful.

It's so great to be able to do  something interactive with you all  after having done this in very quiet,  disparate locations, so thank you. Thank you for all of your thoughtful questions, thank you for watching the series, for being a part of this journey. It's really kind of become a part  of us for the last couple years,  and it's been a really incredible journey.

Thank you to Flipgrid for  sponsoring this live stream  and helping make this all happen. Do check them out at the link  in the description below. And thank you to April for  providing all of our expertise.
And thank you Alizé, it's been so fun to see you in person. >Like I said, we met today. We met this morning getting off the plane <It's been great to just get to talk to you and you know the audience here about Geography. >Yeah, just as one final note,  make sure you turn into World  History Office Hours tomorrow, that will also be at 7 p.m. And thank you all so much for joining us, it's really been a pleasure.