The geographically informed person must understand how humans are able to live in various physical settings and the role the physical features of those settings play in shaping human activity. Regardless of spatial scale, Earth's surface is diverse in terms of climates, vegetation, fauna, soils, underlying geology, and topography. That diversity offers a range of environmental contexts where people can live and work. Physical systems and environmental characteristics do not, by themselves, determine the patterns of human activity; however, they do influence and constrain the choices people make.
Therefore, Standard 15 contains these themes: Environmental Opportunities and Constraints, Environmental Hazards, and Adaptation to the Environment.
To live in any physical environment, no matter how accommodating or how challenging, people must develop ways to take advantage of its opportunities and minimize its risks. If the incentives are great enough, people can adapt to the harshest of environments, often regardless of cost or risk.
A concept central to understanding environments is the idea of carrying capacity: the maximum number of animals and/or people a given area can support at a given time under specified levels of consumption without incurring significant environmental deterioration. Environments vary in their carrying capacities. Failure to recognize that reality can lead to environmental disaster. Increasingly, people are recognizing their responsibility to manage the environment in ways that are sustainable for future generations.
ating, river rafting).
Describe how people take advantage of the physical environment of their local community (e.g., water supply, farming, gardens, recreational activities).
B. Describe examples in which the physical environment imposes constraints on human activities, as exemplified by being able to
Describe how human activities are limited by landforms such as flood plains, deltas, mountains, and slopes in choices of land use (e.g., agriculture, human settlement, transportation networks).
Describe examples in which human activities are limited by different types of climates (e.g., cold or polar, rainy or dry, equatorial).
Describe how transportation routes are shaped by the physical environment (e.g., horseshoe curves, tunnels, bridges).
Environmental Hazards
2. Environmental hazards affect human activities
Therefore, the student is able to:
A. Identify and describe the locations of environmental hazards,as exemplified by being able to
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