GEOG 1 Syllabus Abbreviated

Course Description

This course will study the Earth's components & dynamic processes worldwide, a lot like the Earth's anatomy and processes. You will understand how mountains are formed & how they erode, how storms are formed, and why California is so dry. You will learn about the lithosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere. By the end of this class, you should be able to interpret your environment. As you drive down the road and see an "fault block mountain range" or hear about a "high pressure" cell on the news, you will know what they are talking about from your background in physical geography.

Course Materials

MANDATORY - McKnight's Physical Geography, A Landscape Appreciation- by Darrel Hess. Purchasing a new, used or previous edition is fine. This textbook is your primary way to learn this subject. If you purchase the new edition, you will receive an access code for Mastering Geography from the publisher, which is indeed useful for additional review, but Mastering is not used for this course at this time. (13th Edition).

Highly recommended - Physical Geography Course Pack, S. Booth found only at the Sierra College Bookstore on the Rocklin Campus for a reasonable price. This course pack is a well-organized, printed outline of all the lectures exactly as the on-ground lectures. You will find other important items in it, such as lecture notes, printed PowerPoints lectures, review questions, exercises & worksheets, term sheets and more.

Hardware & Software - Computer or similar device; current browser edition, such as Firefox, and of course access to internet. I provide documents such as PDF files and Microsoft PowerPoint (PPT for Chapter 8 on climates). You may need this software to read these documents. Note: Canvas at this time seems to render in a browser PDF and PPT files just fine.

Course Structure

There are 4 major assignment groups: Exams, Chapter Quizzes, Video Quizzes, and Worksheets or Discussions for studying and projects.

With 4 exams, you will have fewer chapters per exam than previous versions of this class. That is good.

Also, all students will get double time. Normally students in class get 1/2 hour.
So the best approach is to have done all the quizzes, worksheets, and video quizzes so you are ready.
- You will find Focal Points (within each chapter module) as great study guides.

Standard grades, simply based on the points you earn, are just like you would expect:

90 percent and above = A
80 percent and above = B
70 percent and above = C
60 percent and above = D
below 60 = F

Concluding Words

The effort put forth by you will not only show in your grade, but will also make you an informed citizen enlightened about our rich and diverse world. Geography is about everything that surrounds us. You can't miss seeing, hearing, touching and even tasting it. Stories in the newspaper, magazines and in the news abound with geographic issues every day. This class will help you understand these stories and issues much better.