Name:
Date:
Per:
Chapter 1 Section 1: The Six Essential Elements of Geography
Directions: using your textbook answer the following questions.
1. How many square miles is Texas and what is the population?
About 267,000 square miles; more than 25 million people
2. How many farms are in Texas and how much land is used for farming and ranching?
Close to 250,000 farms; about 130 million acres
3. Why is geographic knowledge useful?
Helps to plan for the future and helps people understand where things are and why they are
there
4. What are a few examples of physical and human characteristics of a place?
Physical: animals and plants, water sources, climate, weather, landforms, soils
Human: ethnicity, language, political and economic systems, population distribution, religion,
living standards
5. How would you define formal, functional, and perceptual regions?
Formal: a region having one or more shared characteristics (ex: countries, states, cities)
Functional: made up of different places that function together as a unit (ex: Dallas/Ft. Worth)
Perceptual: defined by people’s shared attitudes, culture, feelings about an area (hill country)
6. A beach, an island, and a pond are all ecosystems.
7. What hurt farming and ranching in parts of Texas in the 1930s?
Drought (Mother Nature) and overgrazing (humans)
8. What examples are given to illustrate how human activity can positively and
negatively affect the environment?
Positive: tree planting, eco-friendly housing, recycling
Negative: air pollution, water pollution, loss of animal habitat
9. What has the increase in population done to the environment of Texas?
Placed greater demands on the environment (ex: need more land and more water)
10. If you were or your family were to buy a vacation home, how would geography and
the environment affect your decision on where to buy a home?
Answers will vary
Chapter 1 Section 1 Vocabulary
1. Geography-study of the world, its people, and how they interact
2. Environment-physical surroundings
3. Culture-shared beliefs, traits, values
4. Geographic information systems-databases that store huge amounts of geographical
data
5. Ecosystem-all of an area’s living and non-living parts
6. Migration-movement of people
7. Urbanization-increase in people living and working in cities
8. Roy Bedichek-one of Texas’ first naturalists and conservationists