Geography Minor | ROAM – Open Educational Resources

Undergraduate Minor in Geography

The field of geography encompasses both social-behavioral and environmental sciences. Penn State World Campus offers a geography minor that includes topics such as sustainability and human-environment systems, energy policy, global warming, geopolitics, cartography, remote sensing, and geographic information systems. You will find much of the course content related to this minor in these Open Educational Resources.

Mapping our Changing World (GEOG 160)

Credit: Space Station Flyover of Super Typhoon Noru by NASA is Public Domain

Course Description

Whether you realize it or not, when you carry a smart phone, use a navigation system in your car, or look up the nearest coffee shop on your computer, you are using geographic information. Geographic data and technologies are embedded in almost all aspects of our lives. GEOG 160, Mapping Our Changing World, explores what geographic information and data are, what makes them unique, how they are created, and how we use them.

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Geography of Water Resources (GEOG 431)

Credit: Landscape, Water, River, Sky, Lake 2239074 by Alexeev Alexey is licensed under CC0

Course Description

Geography 431 is designed to further understanding of the natural processes of aquatic ecosystems, management of water resources, and threats to sustaining water quantity. Develop awareness and appreciation of the perspectives about water as a precious resource, commodity, and sometimes hazard. Learn how and why water is distributed unevenly around the Earth. Examine how resource management decisions are strongly related to water availability, quantity, and quality.

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Course Spotlight

pile of maps

Cartography and Visualization (GEOG 486) covers design principles and techniques for creating maps with contemporary mapping tools. Students will be introduced to future-focused application topics such as augmented and virtual reality, mapping with multivariate glyphs, the visual depiction of uncertainty, interactive geovisualization, and (geo)visual analytics, and decision-making with maps and mapping products. Visit the course.

Faculty Spotlight

Maria Scalzi Wherley (she, her) is a Learning Designer and Writer-in-Residence with the John A. Dutton e-Education Institute at Penn State. She has more than 20 years of teaching experience. Learn more about Maria to see what she has to say about online education.