What you should know Human Geography

A course which tries to cover the entire world in one semester is necessarily broad but not deep. Much of what we learn in this course has to do with how scholars in a number of fields approach their subject matter - how they think about things and how they name them. You should be familiar with the following:

Human population trends, causes of the population explosion, long term prospects

Demographic transition theory

describe the stages

Human Development Index

what it is

what it measures

parts of the world that are more developed

parts of the world that are less developed

Globalization -

what is being globalized and what is not

positive and negative effects of globalization

likely trends

Migration

why people are moving and where

who and where is impacted

likely trends

Major elements of Culture and locations of principal culture hearths

Language

understand that languages are grouped in language families,

representative languages of the major language families,

where major languages are spoken

general idea of number of speakers of the worlds major languages

Religion

know the world's major religions

where religions are practices

general idea of the number of adherents and growth projections

Race

understand why race is a social and not a biological classification

Principle supranational political and economic organizations

EU, UN, NATO, World Bank, IMF, GATT, WTO, NAFTA

Conflicts

know the major wars and insurgencies that are occurring in the world, where they are and who is involved

Current World Affairs

Read the international news and be current on recent news events around the world