Water

This week in geography class the main topic of discussion has been about water and agriculture. First we began to talk about where water bottles come from. Water comes from taps, bottles, lakes, and any type of way water is distributed to people. We talked about two types of watersheds: The Mississippi Watershed and the Great Lakes Watershed. Pleasant Prairie recieves its water from the Mississippi Watershed and Kenosha recieves its water from the Great Lakes Watershed which comes from Lake Michigan. Water may either come from the tap or be purchased in bottles. It is fact that about four billion people do not have access to clean drinkable water on a daily basis. There are three types of filters that clean water. The first filter is a sand filter, the second filter is a ozone filter, and the third filter is an aquafir, which is fully saturated rock. In many places water contributes to that areas temperature. In Kenosha the Great Lakes keep us at a moderate temperature.
This week we also got into groups to decide weather or not to build a recreational lake in Arizona. We disscussed many advantages and disadvantages to the City Council who the developers were trying to persuade. The other two groups came to the conclusion that building the lake would be a bad idea due to the cost, the taking away of drinking water, and the algae problem. The City Council voted the lake to not be built, but in reality we actually found out that the lake really does exist.

Segregation and Economic Geography

The main focus of class this week was the topic of segregation, mainly in Northern Ireland. Ethnic encloues include language, visible signs, and busisness. Throughout the world there are many different towns or neighborhoods that are segregated. Some popular segregated neighborhoods include Chinese, Mexican, Hmong, and Polish. At Carthage we are segregated in many ways such as sex, athletics, teacher's departments, etc. In society segregation happens both vuluntarily and invuluntarily. Buying a house is an issue that is in regards to segregation. When one buys a house he or she takes into consideration the distance from work, if it meets his or her needs, nice, and urban. Segregation is a scientific way to think about segregation. The science uses the segregation index which measures the amount of segregation from 0-1.
In economic geography location matters. There are three sectors, but there might be four, or even five. The three sectors are primary, secondary, and tertiary. Primary deals with raw goods, secondary deals with manufacturing, and the tertiary sector deals with services. The possible fourth sector, the quarentary sector deals with information, and the fifth sector, the quinary sector, consists of very high wealth.

Culture

Culture is the main focus in class this week. Culture region includes food, atire, language/dialect, daily routines, and holidays in a specific region. In different regions their are different forms of culture that are acted out in that society. Carthage has a lot of cultural aspects. Here at Carthage the classes are small about 17-30 students on average, a lot of students here are athletes, most students are of the ages 18 to 22 years old, and their are many forms of different culture in each floor of the dorms. The Midwest also has many forms of culture. In the Midwest their is cottage cheese, brats, a lot of different kinds of beers, a lot of differnt kinds of cheeses, corn, sourkraut, hot dogs, and seven layer salads. All these cultural aspects make the Midwest very unique. The South also has many aspects of culture. In the South their is macaroni and cheese, collard greens, fried okra, meat and three, crawdads, sweet tea, barbeque, and cheese grits. Food is a very noticable product to identify a regions culture. The Southwestern region includes mexican food, tex-mex, fish tacos, hot and spicy food, chiles, green chiles, and salsas. All of these aspects of culture are given to us through images on the television.

Spatial Diffusion

This week in class we began to discuss about the topic of spatial diffusion. Spatial diffusion is when something occurs in a certain area, and if it turns out to be a good occurance it will later spread. In class we talked about how flip flop sandles are a good example of spatial diffusion because they started out in the beaches in the south, moved inland to Georgia for example, then ended up northward. We also looked at imagery and the affects of GIS. In class we used google to use maps to locate anywhere we wanted. The advancements in GIS and mapping have had a great affect on privacy. Terroserver is downloaded and imported into GIS and contains 1m resolution. Spatial resolution can be found on google and has a 25 cm resolution. The imagery from google comes from the USGS which updates from satelites. Then we discussed the topic of vectors. Vectors carry disease from one person to another. Certain diseases are picked up in certain geographic regions and brought back to other regions through vectors. Lastly Tobler gives us his First Law of Geography which states that everything is related to everything else, and those things that are closer are more related.

Redistricting Game

The Redistricting Game was very interesing to play. The main issue during the game was the topic of gerrymandering. Gerrymandering is in a sense cheating. The game proves to us how easily candidates can manipulate the election making the candidate that you want to win. Gerrymandering is unjust, and should be illegal. This game is a proof that politics now a days are not always what we think they are, and never garuntee everything they say they are going to do for the citizens, and supporters of that political party. Without equal population districts, voting would not be fair, and politics would not be just when it comes time for an election in regaurds to who is selected.
This week in class we discussed many interesting topics. We first talked about Hmong who said that we relyed in information from our allies during the Vietnam War. Next, we discussed on how we are apart of a map imersed society. Everyday we are surrounded by some sort of map, or some sort of geography. Reference maps are fast, on the internet, used to get directions from A to B, provide location and direction, and can be an invatory. Often times reference maps are used to lie. The other type of map we discussed were data/thematic maps. Data/thematic maps look at place and the characteristics in that place. Housing, population, and income are intensible, and fall under the category of data/thematic maps. When in the process of making a map you need to think about labeling and design. As the week came to a close Julio was able to find out an immense amount of information about the students in class with just our address. With your name, address, zipcode, or telephone number, you can find out a lot of information on that person.

Ryan Matuszewski Blog

This week in class we discussed many interesting topics. The most interesting topic I think we discussed this week was the topics about migration and immigration. I thought it was very interesting to find out why people move to where they do and why people come to the United States from where they previously lived. Migration is the movement of place and immigration is when you cross boundaries. People migrate to other places for many reasons such as climate, location, size, family, friends, or job opportunities. Many people immigrate to other countries for a better way of life. When it comes to migration and immigration push and pull factors always influence movement to a place. Today we face a problem that so many people are coming to the States that there could possibly be a large problem due to overpopulation. Research shows that one day Arizona State University is expected to have 90,000 students, and Phoenix is expected to have seven to nine million people. Immigration today is sometimes seen as a problem, but it is actually a good thing. Immigrants do the cheap labor jobs that keep this country functioning that most born American citizens would not do. Data reguarding population and migration can be discoverd through the models we made, and learned about. These models used math formulas and calculations to find out the population. Although not all models were accurate, they were interesting to create. As a result of this data we found out that a healthy normal population is 51% women and 49% men.

Chapter 4 Newton's First Law of Migration

Chapter 4 Newton's First Law of Migration states why people come to the United States. The United States has so much to offer for its citizens, and everyone wants to use those resources for a better way of living. The other day in class we discussed that the small towns in the Great Plains are getting even smaller because more and more people are leaving the area due to low opportunities for work. In class we asked who grew up in a big city or town, and who grew up in a small city or town. We then asked the people who lived in the big cities or town if they would ever live in a small town. Next we asked the people who lived in the small cities or towns if they plan on returning to that location in the future. As a result, most who lived in large cities said they would not move to a small town, and most that lived in the small towns said they would not want to return to the location in the future. The reason these people who lived in small towns growing up said this is because unless you own your own buisness, job opportunites are very scare in the small town location. The chapter later goes on to talk about what immigrants look for when they come to find work in the United States. They usually move to bigger cities because there is more opportunities for work and a better way of living. In other words, the more people you have in a city or town, the more job opportunites there is going to be, and the higher level of education one recieves, the opportunity to have a better career is higher.