Geography 141:
The Natural Environment
Fall, 2009

Used (discounted) copies will be available at the UO Bookstore; alternatively, an e-book version is available for nearly the same price.

Strawberry Lake above the John Day River valley, central Oregon.

This course will introduce you to the major processes that shape the natural world, including the weather, climate, vegetation, and landforms that we experience each day.  

Students will develop an understanding of the major disciplines that comprise physical geography: climatology, geomorphology, and biogeography.  This course serves as the prerequisite for 300-level physical geography courses.  Specific topics include:

• Weather and Atmospheric processes
• Seasons, eath/sun relations, controls of temperature including the greenhouse effect
• Winds, moisture, and the basis of weather systems
• Climate and Biogeography
• Global climates
• Soils
• Patterns in vegetation
• Historical and ecological concepts in biogeography
• Geomorphology
• Weathering and mass wasting
• The fresh water resource
• Landforms made by rivers
• Landforms made by wind and waves
  

Grading will be based on:

• Three exams
• 18 "summary and question" feedback cards turned in at the end of lecture (see detailed syllabus).
• Weekly laboratories will be used for in-depth learning of the topics in lecture.
• Laboratories will engage you in the tools of physical geography, including map analysis, aerial photography, interpreting weather and climate, and understanding patterns of vegetation and landforms.  The laboratories will be based mostly on the Pacific Northwest bioregion.

Please click here for the detailed syllabus, which is somewhat tentative at the moment.