Grade+9-12+standards


 * National Geography Standards 1994 (Gr. 9-12)**


 * __Geography Standard 1__:** How to use maps and other geographic representations, tools, and technologies to acquire, process, and report information from a spatial persepective

By the end of the twelfth grade, the student knows and understands:
 * 1) How to use maps and other graphic representations to depict geographic problems.
 * 2) How to use technologies to represent and interpret Earths physical and human systems.
 * 3) How to use geographic representations and tools to analyze, explain, and solve geographic problems.

Therefore, the student is able to:

__A.__ Produce and interpret maps and other graphic representations to solve geographic problems, as exemplified by being able to:
 * Develop maps to illustrate how population density varies in relation to resources and types of land use (e.g., variations in population density in cattle-raising areas versus truck-farming areas, residential areas versus inner cities, unused desert areas versus year-round vacation resorts).
 * Compile information from various media and then transform the primary data into maps, graphs, and charts (e.g., bar graphs showing wheat production in Argentina over a five-year period, charts developed from recent census data ranking selected information on such topics as high-school dropout rates per state, or literacy rates for the countries of Southwest Asia, cartograms depicting the relative sizes of Latin American countries based on their urban populations.
 * Develop maps and graphs to show the spatial relationships within and between regions (e.g., transportation networks illustrating rail, air, and highway connections between northern and southern Europe, or time-to-travel distance ratios within the Northeast megalopolis in the United States)

__B.__ Use maps and other geographic representations to analyze world events and suggest solutions to world problems, as exemplified by being able to:
 * Develop maps, tables, graphs, charts, and diagrams to depict the geographic implications of current world events (e.g., maps showing changing political boundaries and tables showing the distribution of refugees from areas affected by natural disasters).
 * Modify selected characteristics of a region (e.g., population, environment, politics, economics, culture) to suggest long-range planning goals.
 * Use several different maps to account for selected consequences of human/environment interactions (e.g., the impact of a tropical storm on a coral island, the draining of wetlands on bird and marine life, desertification on human settlement).

__C.__ Evaluate the applications of geographic tools and supporting technologies to serve particular purposes, as exemplified by being able to:
 * Provide evidence regarding the central role of maps to study and explore Earth throughout history (e.g., maps made by early navigators and by such polar explorers as Robert F. Scott, Robert E. Peary, and Matthew Henson).
 * Choose and give reasons to use specific technologies to analyze selected geographic problems (e.g., aerial photographs, satellite-produced imagery, and geographic information systems [GIS] to determine the extent of water pollution in a harbor complex in South Africa or the range of deforestation in Madagascar)


 * __Geography Standard 2:__** How to use mental maps to organize information about people, places and environments in a spatial context

By the end of the twelfth grade, the student knows and understands:
 * 1) How to use mental maps of physical and human features of the world to answer complex geographic questions.
 * 2) How mental maps reflect the human perception of places.
 * 3) How mental maps influence spatial and environmental decision-making

Therefore, the student is able to:

__A.__ Use maps drawn from memory to answer geographic questions, as exemplified by being able to
 * Prepare sketch maps indicating the approximate locations of different political cultures in the United States to predict voting patterns (e.g., changes in votes cast in presidential elections since 1960 related to voter migration to the Sunbelt states).
 * Prepare a sketch map to illustrate the spatial dynamics of contemporary and historical events (e.g., the spread of readiation from the Chernobyl nuclear accident or of the bubonic plague in fourteenth-century Europe, how physical features have deterred migrations and invasions)
 * Analyze world patterns of the diffusion of contagious diseases (e.g., AIDS, cholera, measles) to draw conclusions about spatial interactions (trade and transportation) in the present-day world

__B.__ Identify the ways in which mental maps influence human decisions about location, settlement, and public policy, as exemplified by being able to
 * Collect information to understand decision-makers mental maps (e.g., conduct interviews with community leaders regarding their perceptions of the location of different community activities).
 * Identify the ways in which values, attitudes, and perceptions are reflected in past and present decisions concerning location (e.g., locating houses in areas with scenic views, selecting a building site in a dramatic physical setting for a house of worship in a new suburban community).
 * Draw conclusions about the roles that different sources of information play in peoples decisions to migrate to other countries (e.g., letters from relatives and friends, newspaper and magazine advertisements, television programs and movies)

__C.__ Compare the mental maps of individuals to identify common factors that affect the development of spatial understanding and preferences, as exemplified by being able to
 * Speculate about the differences in peoples mental maps based on differences in their life experiences (e.g., the influence of age and sex on how people view housing preferences or public transportation in a city).
 * Analyze factors that influence peoples preferences about where to live (e.g., surveys of fellow students identifying choice residential areas within the community or within the country).
 * Compare maps of the world using different projections and perceptions of space (e.g., a map centered on the Pacific Ocean or a world map with Australia at the top) to draw conclusions about factors that influence mental maps

__**Geography Standard 3:**__ How to analyze the spatial organization of people, places, and environments on earths surface

By the end of the twelfth grade, the student knows and understands:
 * 1) The generalizations that describe and explain spatial interaction.
 * 2) The models that describe patterns of spatial organization.
 * 3) The spatial behavior of people.
 * 4) How to apply concepts and models of spatial organization to make decisions.

Therefore, the student is able to:

__A.__ Apply concepts of spatial interaction (e.g., complementarity, intervening opportunity, distance decay, connections) to account for patterns of movement in space, as exemplified by being able to
 * Explain how places that are close together usually interact more than places that are far apart because the effort to overcome the friction of distance imposes costs in money and in time.
 * Predict the effects of changing community transportation routes on the current structure and pattern of retail-trade areas, parks, and school-bus routes, given that such changes may create a new network of connections between locations and new intervening opportunities for shopping or services.
 * Analyze the patterns of trade between the United States and Japan to explain the concept of complementarity (e.g., lumber from the United States to Japan and consumer elctronics goods from Japan to the United States).

__B.__ Use models of spatial organization to analyze relationships in and between places, as exemplified by being able to


 * Examine the differences in threshold population or demand needed to support different retail activities in a place and estimate how many people are needed to support a neighborhood convenience store, supermarket, regional shopping mall, and regional cancer-treatment center.
 * Use Christallers central place theory to explain why there are many small central places and few very large central places (i.e., small communities serve small areas because they offer less expensive and less specialized goods and services, whereas very large cities such as London, New York, Moscow, and Tokyo serve large areas because they offer many expensive and specialized goods and services).
 * Conduct a community survey to test the law of retail gravitation (i.e., the number of visits a resident makes to competing shopping centers is inversely proportional to the distances between residence and center and proportional to center size).

__C.__ Explain how people perceive and use space, as exemplified by being able to
 * Describe activity spaces of people according to such characteristics as age, sex, employment, and income level (e.g., school-age children traveling to and from school, employed people commuting by public transit, high-income people traveling long distances for vacations).
 * Explain why people have different preferences for residential locations and use different means to search for satisfactory residences (e.g., some people prefer to live in suburbs or edge cities and may search for a residence by working closely with a realtor, whereas others may explore many suburbs on their own before making a decision).
 * Evaluate reasons why people decide to migrate (e.g., people being influenced by pull factors of the potential destination or by push factors of the h ome area, people selecting different types of locations if they are seeking emplyment rather than a place for retirement).

__D.__ Apply concepts and models of spatial organization to make decisions, as exemplified by being able to
 * Explain why optimum plant-location decisions in a commercial economy take into consideration labor costs, transportation costs, and market locations (e.g., the least-cost decision as to where to locate a furniture factory requires knowing wage levels for skilled workers, the cost of transporting raw wood and finished furniture, and the location of competing firms and wholesale and retail furniture outlets).
 * Explain why some specialized agricultural products are grown far from the point of consumption (e.g., cut flowers are grown in Venezuela, Colombia, and Israel because of transportation costs, labor costs, and climate).
 * Explain why there are advantages for retailers to locate in malls rather than in dispersed locations (e.g., malls bring many large and small stores together in close proximity and take advantage of sharing costs for parking lots, lighting, and other utilities while providing convenience and time efficiency for customers.

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