German geographical research on Japan

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The recent intellectual structure of geography

An active learning project in an introductory graduate course used multidimensional scaling of the name index in Geography in America at the Dawn of the 21st Century, by Gary Gaile and Cort Willmott, to reveal some features of the discipline\u27s recent intellectual structure relevant to the relationship between human and physical geography. Previous analyses, dating to the 1980s, used citation indices or Association of American Geographers spe- cialty-group rosters to conclude that either the regional or the methods and environmental subdisciplines bridge human and physical geography. The name index has advantages over those databases, and its analysis reveals that the minimal connectivity that occurs between human and physical geography has recently operated more through environmental than through either methods or regional subdisciplines

The geography fieldwork experience: Spain 2008

In the last week of April, Dr Tony Mellor and five colleagues from the School of Applied Sciences took 34 Geography students on field work to Andalucia in southern Spain. This residential trip takes place annually as part of a core module on the second year of the BSc (Hons) Geography degree programme. The module enables students to: (a) apply skills of observation, measurement and data collection in a real world field context, (b) demonstrate skills in project design, report writing, oral presentation and group work, and (c) describe and interpret physical and environmental processes operating in the study area and discuss howthey contribute to the distinctiveness of its landscapes

An Introduction To Physical Geography And Environmental Systems

A GEM article.The objectives of this paper are first, to outline the nature and development of physical geography; second, to introduce the systems concept and a scheme of classifying environmental systems; third to illustrate some of the complexities of such systems by way of examples, and fourth, to describe some key concepts related to the behavior of environmental systems

Reflections on the IPCC and global change science: time for a more (physical) geographical tradition

Over the last quarter of a century, physical geography has not been served well by the often homogenising influence of global change science, as exemplified by the structures and activities of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). However, certain areas of physical geography may have been at fault in being too little, and too uncritically, engaged with international, interdisciplinary research programmes in global environmental change. Moving forward, physical geography should look towards an independently constituted framework that incorporates the complexities of landscape response to both external forcing and internal feedbacks and, above all, works with others to prevent the socio-spatial injustices associated with climate change from being realised

Environmental History

There was a time when almost all Western geography could be termed environmental history. In the late nineteenth century, physical geographers explained landscapes by describing how they had evolved. Likewise, human geographers saw society as shaped by the directing hands of the environment. By the 1960s this had very much changed. Process studies shortened the temporal framework in geographical explanation and cut the cord between nature and society. Now, physical and human landscapes were seen as responding to short-term fluctuations around a long-term steady state. Between the homeostatic systems of the geomorphologist and the isotropic surfaces of the economic geographer, there seemed to be no congress. For a number of reasons, environmental history now enjoys a renewed significance within human geography. I want to explore four sets of reasons why this is so. First, I will look at the continuing importance of an ecological tradition in geography that was always more than mere environmental determinism. In the second place, I will explore how geographical reasoning has continued to be of interest in what we might term big-picture histories. Thirdly, I want to consider how environmental history was treated within Marxist geography. Finally, I intend to consider how the New Cultural Geography has treated the subject. I will conclude by examining some studies that draw upon the best from these four approaches

Role of Virtual Reality in Geography and Science Fieldwork Education

Fieldwork has a long tradition in geography, and in certain sciences, notably geology, biology and environmental sciences. Fieldwork involves leaving the classroom and engaging in learning and teaching through first-hand experience of phenomena in outdoor settings. Exploration in natural habitats introduces students to the complexity and unpredictability of the real world, stimulates their curiosity, and increases their interest in scientific inquiry. However, over the last decade, there has been a decline in field-study opportunities in schools. This policy paper describes the first extensive user-centered research programme into the role of technology-enabled virtual field trips as a means for improving the effectiveness of the outdoor fieldwork experience. It draws on a year-long research project that investigated how Google Expeditions, a smartphone-driven mobile virtual reality application, bridges virtual fieldwork with physical field trips and facilitates inquiry-based fieldwork and experiential learning. It examines the role of Google Expeditions in primary and secondary school science and geography, outlining the opportunities and challenges of integrating mobile virtual reality in schools and the practical implications of our research for fieldwork education in further and higher education

The effect of altitude and slope on the spatial patterning of burglary

Physical geography is significant for crime, and its presence or absence, yet no studies have investigated the relationship between crime and certain broader features of physical geography such as altitude, and slope. In this study I attempt to fill this gap by using OLS and geographically weighted regression to gauge the effect of altitude and slope on burglary patterns in Tshwane, South Africa. In the analysis I found considerable evidence that residing at a greater altitude reduces your risk of burglary victimization, although residing on steeper slopes had no effect. In the discussion I argue that the underlying relief and terrain on which neighborhoods are built should form an essential 'physical' component of the environmental backcloth that surrounds offenders and influences their spatial decision making processes

Remote sensing technique- a tool for environmental studies

Environment belongs to all and is important to all. As per definition of the Environment Protection Act, environment includes all the physical and biological surroundings and their interactions. The study of environment or rather environmental studies is a multi-disciplinary which needs knowledge interest from physical sciences (physics, chemistry, mathematics), biological sciences (botany, zoology, microbiology, biochemistry), social sciences, economics, sociology, education, geography) etc