Human Geography

Human Geography

Human Geography
Reading Level

	edHelper's suggested reading level:	grades 6 to 8
	Flesch-Kincaid grade level:	7.91

Vocabulary

	challenging words:		distribution, gender, groupings, immigration, spatial, erosion, ownership, negative, human-made, rates, social, cultural, better, graph, bridges, death
	content words:		World War II, United States, North America

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Other Languages
Spanish: Geografía Humana

Human Geography
By Trista L. Pollard

¹     Studying the Earth is a full-time science. Each day our planet changes in so many ways. Geographers need to monitor its physical and human features to keep up with these changes. Normally, Earth's physical features take millions of years to change. When humans are added, these changes take on a whole new meaning. Human geography is the study of human-made features and phenomena on Earth. Geographers want to know how these features and phenomena affect Earth's environment.

²     Human geographers look at spatial organization. Spatial organization is how land features, people, and human-made features are arranged on Earth. Our use of space on the planet has a huge impact on our environment. Throughout human history, we have changed the land. This is so that we could adapt to the environment. We have developed cities and towns near natural resources. We moved to new areas for various reasons. Each time we move, we affect our environment in positive and negative ways. This is what human geographers want to know. They study these effects and predict changes in Earth's space for the future.

³     One way space is changed is the building of human-made features. These are your buildings, houses, roads, highways, bridges, and dams. These structures change the Earth's landscape. People have migrated to different areas for thousands of years. In each new area, they have changed the landscape by building shelter and roads. These structures change the natural balance of the environment. They may cause less or more erosion. Animal habitats may be destroyed when new houses are built.

⁴     Human-made phenomena also affect space on Earth. Phenomena are the events that happen because of other certain human events. We rely on natural resources to survive. These resources, like fossil fuels, heat our homes and provide gas for our cars. Use of these fuels has also caused air and water pollution. Both are human-made phenomena. Pollution has become a major problem around the world. Geographers study our use of natural resources to understand how this use changes the environment.

⁵     Population is another human-made phenomenon. It is the total number of people who live in a certain area. Geographers who study population are called demographers. Demographers want to know where people live and why they live in those places. They collect the demographics of an area to learn more about the population. To completely study an area, demographers need population data. Population data gives facts about an area's population in the past and present. Demographers use this information to predict future population trends. All of this information helps geographers understand how we use space on Earth. There are at least seven pieces of population data.

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