Physical Geography Lesson

Unit 1: Physical Geography

Objective: Analyze the physical geography of SWANA using the 5 Themes of Geography

Essential Question: How does geography affect where people live?

Today's Vocabulary

• Desalination: The process of removing salt and minerals from seawater to make it safe for drinking and watering crops

  
  

• Arid/Desert Climate: A large, dry area of land with little precipitation

  
  

• SWANA: Southwest Asia and North Africa

  
  

Location- where a place or region is located on Earth

SWANA is located Southeast of Europe, and West of Asia

Open Ended

What do you already know about this part of the world?

Place- Describes location

Physical Characteristics: The way a location looks: landforms, landmarks, or bodies of water that are SPECIFIC to that location!

Example: The Sahara Desert

Human Characteristics: –All the ways to describe a person or people, including their way of life, values and beliefs specific to THAT place.

Multiple Choice

What historical man-made landmark is located in Egypt?

• Taj Mahal

• The Western Wall

• The Pyramids of Giza

Region- Places with similar characteristics

SWANA is considered a region, as these nations share similar arid/desert climate, natural resources, religion, language, and cultural history, and ethnic groups

This region also shares a very important natural resource- can you guess it?

Oil! Most of the world’s oil can be found in this region. Many nations in SWANA depend on oil to economically survive.

Open Ended

Looking at this map, what problems do you predict this region having due to dry climate and drought?

Human/Environment Interaction

Because of the climate, there is a lack of freshwater, humans adapt to and/or modify their environment to survive. Technology is vital to the livelihood of these nations!

Example:

Desalination- The process of removing salt and minerals from seawater to make it safe for drinking and watering crops

Multiple Select

Which of these would be examples of Human/Environment Interaction? Choose all that apply.

• Farming crops for food

• Mining diamonds

• Cutting down trees for wood

• Desalination

Movement

How people, goods, and ideas move from place to place

Example: Cargo ships move oil out of the Persian Gulf

Multiple Select

Which of these is an example of movement? Choose all that apply.

• Driving in a car

• Doing a research project on the internet

• Cargo Ships carrying oil

• Texting a friend directions

Open Ended

Type an Emoji that describes how you feel about today's lesson!