Standards 4-6:  Places and Regions
From Geography for Life: National Geography Standards 1994,
National Council on Geographic Education
 
Standards 4, 5 and 6 of the NCGE's national geography standards emphasize places and regions.  Regarding Places and Regions, the geographically informed person is able to:
4. Physical and human characteristics of places
A) Explain place from a variety of points of view, e.g.,
     a. describe the same place at different times in its history;
     b. explain why places have specific physical and human characteristics in different parts of the world;
     c. skipped.
B) Describe and interpret physical processes that shape places, e.g.,
     a. describe how forces from within Earth influence the character of (a) place;
     b. analyze the role of climate in shaping places;
     c. describe and interpret the importance of erosional processes in shaping places.
C) Explain how social, cultural, and economic processes shape the features of places, e.g.,
     a. describe how culture affects the characteristics of place;
     b. identify how places have been altered by major technological changes;
     c. analyze the ways in which the character of place relates to its economic, political, and population characteristics.
D) Evaluate how humans interact with physical environments to form places, e.g.,
     a. identify the locational advantages and disadvantages of using places for different activities based on their physical characteristics;
     b. explain how places are made distinctive and meaningful by human activities that alter physical features;
     c. evaluate the effects of population growth and urbanization on places.
 

5. Regions help interpret Earth's complexity
A) List and explain the changing criteria that can be used to define a region, e.g.,
     a. identify the physical or human factors that constitute a region;
     b. explain how changing conditions can result in a region taking on a new structure;
     c. explain why regions once characterized by one set of criteria may be defined by a different set of criteria today.
B) Describe the types and organization of regional systems, e.g.,
     a. identify the differences among formal, functional and perceptual regions ;
     b. explain how functional regions are held together;
     c. identify the ways in which the concept of a region can be used to simplify the complexity of Earth's space.
C) Identify human and physical changes in regions and explain the factors that contribute to those changes, e.g.,
     a. use maps to illustrate how regional boundaries change;
     b. identify some of the reasons for changes in the world's political boundaries;
     c. explain factors that contribute to the dynamic nature or regions.
D) Explain the different ways in which regional systems are structured, e.g.,
     a. describe how cities are organized into regional systems;
     b. examine political structures and governments as regional systems;
     c. describe the different ways in which governments and businesses establish regional systems.
E) Interpret the connections within and among the parts of a regional system, e.g.,
     a. describe some of the relationships between and within regions;
     b. explain the ways in which regional systems are interconnected;
     c. explain how physical and human environments form webs of interacting systems within and among regions.
F) Use regions to analyze geographic issues and answer geographic questions, e.g.,
     a. identify and explain the criteria that gave regions their identities at different times in history
     b. identify places participating in past and present regional alliances & evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of these alliances from the perspectives of their member states
     c. Examine the historic reasons for conflicts within specific regions.
 

6. How culture and experience influence people's perceptions of places and regions
A) Explain why places and regions are important to individual human identity and as symbols for unifying or fragmenting society, e.g.,
     a. interpret how people express attachment to places and regions;
     b. explain how point of view influences a person's perception of a place;
     c. identify how places take on symbolic meaning;
B) Explain how individuals view places and regions on the basis of their stage of life, sex, social class, ethnicity, values, and belief systems, e.g.,
     a. make inferences about differences in the personal geographies of men and women;
     b. speculate on how the socioeconomic backgrounds of people influence their points of view about a places or region;
     c. explain how places and regions are stereotyped.
C) Analyze the ways in which people's changing views of places & regions reflect cultural change, e.g.,
     a. explain how shifts from a predominantly rural to predominantly urban society influences the ways in which people perceive and environment;
     b. explain how increases in income, longer life expectancy, and attitudes toward aging influence where people choose to live;
     c. explain the sequential occupance of a specific place.