1) Domestication is when humans raise plants and animals in order to use the plants and animals for their own goods. Humans use plants and animals for food, clothes, medicine, and many other things. The first domestication of plants and animals started around 10,000 years ago. In Mesopotamia they planted seeds in order to harvest the plants for food or fabric for clothing. People around this time also domesticated animals for food, milk, and their skin or fur. They used the skin and fur to make clothes, as well as shelters.
2) The Great Migration was the emigration of African Americans in the United States from about 1916 to 1970. They moved from the south to more urban cities in other parts of the country. One thing focused on in class was the migration of music. Dockery Farms was the most representative plantation of the Mississippi Delta region, and it is called the birthplace of the blues. The Great Migration caused a diffusion of music and culture throughout the United States. The Great Migration also impacted political voices and racial thoughts. It caused many intense riots and black power movements.
3) A universalizing religion is one that tries to appeal to all people around the world, and an ethnic religion is one that is mainly focused on one group of people living near each other. The ethnic religion that we talked about in class was Judaism, and the two universalizing religions that we learned about in class were Christianity and Islam. Both of the universalizing religions have middle eastern origins and the characteristic of diffusion. Diffusion is what causes them to be universal rather than ethnic. Diffusion causes the spread of the religions around the world.
4) Geography is the study of the earth’s landscapes, people, places, and environments. Geography is the combination social sciences, physical aspects, and humanities of the earth. Geography gives us a description of the earth. The themes of geography are place, location, region, movement, and human environmental interactions. The theme of place focuses on if something is man-made or natural. Location refers to if it is absolute or relative. An absolute location is a locations exact position on the earth while a relative location is where a location is in relation to another place. Movement looks at migration, the trading of goods, and the movement of ideas. The last of the themes is human environmental interaction which is how humans interact with the environment and how they adapt.
Geographers look at ways in which societies understand, use, shape, and transform the natural environment. They see geography as an art and spatial science. They study spatial variation. Geographers are interested in location, direction, distance, size and scale, physical and cultural attributes, changing attributes of a place, and interrelations between different places.
5) Plate tectonics explain the movement of the earth’s outer shell. It helps give proof to the fact that all of the continents were once one supercontinent. The plate tectonics is what causes all of the continents to split apart. Plate tectonics are also responsible for earth quakes. The pressure from the movement of the plates is what causes the earth quakes.
Latitude is the horizontal mapping lines on the earth while longitude is the vertical mapping lines on the earth. By having longitude and latitude we can give the coordinates to an exact location on the earth. Weather is a short-term change in the atmosphere. Weather can change over minutes or months. Climate is the average weather in an area over time. Climate is the long-term pattern of weather in a specific area.
The ring of fire is an area on the edge of the Pacific Ocean where many volcanoes are. There is a lot of pressure and heat in the ring of fire which causes the volcanoes to erupt. Most volcanic eruptions and earth quakes are caused when one tectonic plate is forced under another one.