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Geography Branches Introduction

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Geography Branches Introduction

A council is planning for the future of a river catchment in Aotearoa New Zealand. Use the catchment features and information in this worksheet to explore how physical, human and environmental geography help explain places and the connections within them. The catchment includes a river, a mountain, hills, a wetland, a town and farmland. Some questions have more than one reasonable answer; explain your thinking.

Meet the branches

Geography studies places, environments and the relationships between people and the world around them. Physical geography focuses on natural features and processes; human geography focuses on people, places and activities; environmental geography investigates interactions between people and the natural environment.

1.Which description best explains what geography studies?

Only rocks, landforms and weather
Places, environments, people and the relationships between them
Only countries, borders and capitals
Past events and famous people

2.Classify each investigation as mainly physical, human or environmental geography. Write the branch beside each one: (a) how rainfall shapes the river; (b) why the town is growing; (c) how farming affects river water quality.

3.The catchment includes a river, a mountain, hills, a wetland, a town and farmland. Identify one natural feature or process that a physical geographer might investigate, and state a question they could ask about it.

4.A geographer investigates where people live in the catchment and how the town's population has changed. Which branch is the main focus, and what evidence might the geographer collect?

5.A farm uses fertiliser, and heavy rain carries some of it into the river. Explain why this investigation fits environmental geography rather than only physical or human geography.

Make connections

Real geographic questions often cross branch boundaries. A single issue can involve natural processes, human decisions and environmental effects.

6.The council wants to reduce flood risk for homes beside the river. Name one physical-geography factor and one human-geography factor it should consider.

7.Choose the best statement about the three branches of geography.

Each branch studies a completely separate world and never overlaps
Environmental geography replaces physical and human geography
The branches offer different perspectives, and many real issues connect them
Only physical geography uses evidence

8.A new road is proposed through the catchment. Write one question a human geographer could investigate and one question an environmental geographer could investigate.

9.A classmate says, “A study of farming belongs only to human geography.” Do you agree? Explain your answer using a possible connection between farming and the environment.

10.Plan a small geography investigation about the catchment. State the question you would investigate, the branch or branches involved, and one kind of evidence you would collect.