Geography Courses - Yearly Course Planner

(Recent and upcoming offerings)

Physical Geography

Geography 211: World Biogeography  Geography of the world’s major ecosystems based on the global climate model.  Physical processes of soil formation and vegetation development in various ecosystems.  Human impacts on natural systems resulting from past and present land-use practices.  (Winter 2013, 2014)

Geography 235: Atmosphere and Climate  Nature and composition of the atmosphere; temperature, pressure, and humidity; precipitation processes, principles of atmospheric motion, weather forecasting.  (Winter 2009)

Human Geography

Geography 240: Economic Geography   Natural resources, land use, commodity production, and trade.  Minerals, energy resources, forestry, agriculture, and manufacturing industries and their world-wide pattern of distribution.  Globalization of industrial production and services.  (Fall 2013, 2014)

Geography 328: Human Use of the Earth   Geography of the earth’s natural environments as modified by human agency.  Natural versus anthropogenic environmental change.  Population distribution and growth.  Growing food versus growing fuel.  Land use, productive and conservation.  (Winter 2010).

Regional Geography

Geography 312: Chicago and Its Region  Chicago as an example and model of city form.  Physical environments of the Chicago region and their influence on settlement.  Evolution of the geography of Chicago and its suburbs from the 19th century to the present, with an emphasis on recent trends.  Prerequisite: junior standing. (Winter 2013, 2014)

Geography 313: North America  Detailed study of the regional geography of the United States and Canada.  The regional distribution of landform types.  Patterns of culture, history, and economic development that underlie the distribution of distinctive lifeways in the two countries.   (Spring 2013, 2014)

Geographical Analysis

Geography 341: Principles of Cartography  Design, construction, and use of thematic maps for effective presentation of spatial data.  Coordinate systems and map projections.  Introduction to geographic information systems.  Prerequisite:  Math 220-1,2.  (Spring 2013, 2014)

Geography 343: Geographic Information Systems  GIS focused on digital cartography to produce thematic maps.  Permission of instructor required.   (Fall 2013, 2014)

Geography 399: Independent  Study  Supervised research in geography.  May be repeated.

(Offered every quarter)