Geography-7th Grade

Understand world geography and the effects of geography on society, with an emphasis on the United States. Understand world geography and the effects of geography and religion on society with an emphasis on the United States.

Locate, describe and explain places, regions and features on the Earth. Locate, describe and explain places, regions and features of God’s creation. 

Analyze and explain characteristics and interactions of the Earth’s physical systems. Analyze and explain the moral implications of our interactions with the Earth’s physical systems.

Understand relationships between geographic factors and society. Understand relationships between geographic factors, society and the Church.

Understand the historical significance of geography. Understand the historical significance of geography and the Church.

Compare sketch maps with atlas maps to determine the accuracy of physical and cultural features (e.g., political/physical maps of Canada, the United States, and Europe).

Develop maps and flowcharts showing major patterns of movement of people and commodities (e.g., international trade in petroleum, countries that produce and those that consume resources, cartograms, population pyramids). 

Explain the purposes and distinguishing characteristics of selected map projections, globes, aerial photos, and satellite images.

Demonstrate understanding of the spatial distribution of various phenomena by using latitude and longitude to plot data on a base map of the United States or the world (e.g., location of professional sports teams in the U.S. or the world).

Explain how geographic features impacted religious groups that relocated to new geographic regions. 

Explain how Earth-Sun relationships affect Earth’s energy balance (e.g., heating of soil and water at different seasons of the year, differential heating at different latitudes).

Identify and describe different climates in terms of precipitation and temperature and the types of plants and animals associated with each using pictures, maps, and graphs.

Explain our moral obligation to act responsibly as stewards of the earth.

Analyze maps to determine the relationship among climate, natural vegetation, and natural resources.

. Predict the effects of an extreme weather phenomenon on the physical environment (e.g., a hurricane’s impact on a coastal ecosystem).

Explain the different patterns in population density using geographic tools (e.g., pyramids, maps).

Identify human induced changes in land forms, climate, natural vegetation, and resources of their local community, state of Illinois, nation, and the world.

Discuss the human induced changes in relation to our Catholic responsibility. 

Analyze physical and human environments in Illinois and the United States to determine ways that people adapt to and modify their environment.

Formulate several hypotheses about relationships among resources, manufacturing and service industries, transportation, and population densities in different regions of the United States and the world.

Discuss the effects of an extreme weather phenomenon on human populations in different regions of the United States and the world (e.g., hurricanes, flooding, tornadoes).

Identify social, political, and economic factors that attract people to, and repel people from, urban centers.

Describe instances of how places can be changed or destroyed as a result of natural processes.

Describe how humans have adapted to environmental changes caused by natural processes.

Explain how human characteristics of a place are influenced by acculturation (e.g., Spanish culture in middle and South America and the United States Southwest, Hindu and Muslim culture in Southeast Asia).

Explain how an environmental change in one part of the world can affect places in other parts of the world over time.

Explain how environmental change in one part of the world can affect social justice in other parts of the world.