Physical Geography at Black Hawk College is an introductory course in geography. The course is a traditional lecture-style class, with a two hour lab. Through the use of lectures, textbook, and lab exercises, students explore and study the atmospheric and climatic processes of the Earth. The range of topics in this course is limited only by the events that have affected and shaped the Earth's atmosphere and climate, and the life that depends on it. The Sun, time, Earth/Sun energy interactions, composition and origin of the atmosphere, greenhouse effect, precipitation, pollution, weather patterns, climate, biomes and soils are but some of the subjects examined. We'll even ask the question, "What is Global Warming? Is Global Warming dangerous?" - the answers may surprise you!

The laboratory section of this course gives students a hands-on approach to learning about weather instruments, map reading, weather map interpretation and world weather patterns. Students will also participate in a field trip which examines local biodiversity, human influenced terrain and geomorphic processes.

Students may also be asked to complete selected projects for this course, such as term research papers, oral presentations, in-class debates, and research article summary papers.

For those students needing a lab science course, this course meets the Lab Elective requirements.

Instructor

Richard Harwood

Student Comments

Interested in seeing what students think after completing the course? This link will take you to a web page with recent student comments for the Physical Geography 101 course.

 

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