Rediscovering Geography New Relevance for Science and Society (1997) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
2 Geography and Critical Issues
2 Geography and Critical Issues
Pages 16-27
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 16... ...
The value of these activities derives from geography's focus on the evolving character and organization of the Earth's surface, on the ways in which the interactions of physical and human phenomena in space create distinctive places and regions, and on the influences those places and regions have on a wide range of natural and human events and processes. Such concerns are not simply exercises in expanding the encyclopedic knowledge of faraway places; they go to the heart of some of the most urgent questions before decision makers today: How should societies respond to the accelerated pace of environmental degradation in many parts of the world?
|
From page 17... ...
ECONOMIC HEALTH Perhaps the main reason for American society's strong interest in geography in the 1990s is a sense that jobs, income, and entrepreneurial opportunities in the United States are connected with the global marketplace. The United States is caught up in the profoundly important process of global economic restructuring, in which every nation seeks competitive advantage in providing products and services that global consumers want.
|
From page 18... ...
Such research findings have helped the federal government appreciate the importance of formulating programs to help defense-dependent communities adjust to plant and facility closings and other impacts of defense spending cuts. For instance, these findings have been influential in stimulating initiatives to educate state and local economic development officials about reemployment strategies and options for plant and facility reuse.
|
From page 19... ...
Answering geographic questions of this sort requires careful analysis of the spatial character of pollution and the dynamic interactions between humans and their environment as a function of place. As one example, during and shortly after the Manhattan Project, workers at Los Alamos National Laboratory in northern New Mexico released some plutonium onto nearby canyon floors where it became attached to sedimentary particles.
|
From page 20... ...
The arrow representing flows through the main stem of the Rio Grande decreases in size in the downstream direction, indicating that plutonium is being stored in the river system. Source: Graf (1994~.
|
From page 21... ...
More broadly, it focuses attention on issues that are fundamental to an understanding of the dynamics of ethnic conflict, including the degree of legitimacy accorded particular territorial arrangements by different populations, the ways in which economic and social arrangements are at odds with dominant territorial structures, the implications of territorial arrangements for intergroup relations and understandings, and the effects of regional inequalities on political and social stability. The insights to be gained from a geographic perspective on ethnic conflict can be illustrated by the geographic analysis of the Vance-Owen partition plan for Bosnia after the disintegration of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s (Jordan, 19931.
|
From page 22... ...
Health care services are provided in particular places; effective decisions about where a particular service should be located must take into consideration the spatial organization of people, health problems, and related services. By focusing attention on locational efficiencies, a geographic analysis can point to specific ways of providing needed health care services cost effectively and, in many instances, can point to better ways of providing critical health services.
|
From page 23... ...
At the time of this study in 1990, it was the practice of the state to provide financial assistance for maternal and child health services only to hospitals with more than 75 births per year. This geographic analysis led to a review of that practice to consider supporting some smaller, rural hospitals that were strategically located to serve women in more remote areas.
|
From page 24... ...
COHMAP the Cooperative Holocene Mapping Project is an example of a recent interdisciplinary climate change research project with a strong geographic component (COHMAP, 1988; Wright et al., 19931. The simulations developed by COHMAP showed how variations in macroscale controls of climate for example, the size of ice sheets, ocean temperatures, composition of the atmosphere, and the latitudinal and seasonal distributions of solar radiation govern regional patterns of climate change (see Figure 2.51.
|
From page 25... ...
The needs to improve the skills of the labor force and to meet the challenges of democratic citizenship in a fast-changing, increasingly complex world present enormous educational challenges (U.S. Department of Education, 1992; U.S.
|
From page 26... ...
The top panels summarize in a schematic fashion the results of the simulation of climate at 18 ka and 9 ka (ka = thousands of radiocarbon years ago) by using a general circulation model (the National Center for Atmospheric Research's Community Climate Model)
|
From page 27... ...
Ultimately, national education goals were incorporated into legislation the Educate America Act, which became public law in 1994. The act specifically included geography as a core subject, not only because geographic literacy was deemed to be important but also because geography instruction would be a vehicle for increasing classroom attention to contemporary issues and for integrating the content and skills associated with other core subjects.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.