6.1 - Modern Eastern Hemisphere Geography

Sixth Grade - Sixth Social Studies - 6.1 - Modern Eastern Hemisphere Geography

From EngageNY

The diverse geography of the Eastern Hemisphere has influenced human culture and settlement patterns in distinct ways. Human communities in the Eastern Hemisphere have adapted to or modified the physical environment.

6.1a Maps can be used to represent varied climate zones, landforms, bodies of water, and resources of the Eastern Hemisphere.

6.1b The Eastern Hemisphere can be divided into regions. Regions are areas that share common identifiable characteristics, such as physical, political, economic, or cultural features. Regions within the Eastern Hemisphere include:

                    • Middle East (North Africa and Southwest Asia)
                    • Sub-Saharan Africa
                    • Europe (West, North, South, Central, and Southeast)
                    • Russia and the Independent States (Russia, Caucasia, Central Asia, the region of Belarus, Moldova, and Ukraine)
                    • East Asia (People’s Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan)
                    • Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar [Burma], Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Brunei, Philippines)
                    • South Asia (Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan)
                    • Oceania (Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific)
6.1c The physical environment influences human population distribution, land use, economic activities, and political connections.

• Students will use physical, climate, and vegetation maps in combination with population density, land use, and resource distribution maps in order to discern patterns in human settlement, economic activity, and the relationship to scarcity of resources in the present-day Eastern Hemisphere.
• To understand scale, students will work with maps at a variety of scales so they can compare patterns in population density and land use, economic activity, and political connections across the present-day Eastern Hemisphere, within a region of the Eastern Hemisphere, and in a specific country. In doing so, students will examine maps of the hemisphere, three regions within the present-day Eastern Hemisphere, and one specific country within each region.

6.1d Issues and problems experienced in the regions of the Eastern Hemisphere have roots in the past.

• Students will examine current political and environmental issues in a region or country of the Eastern Hemisphere being studied.