Carol A. Nickolai

Contacting the Instructor

Office hours:	By appointment only.
Voicemail:	Voice messages not taken.
Email:	CNickolai@gmail.com or CNickolai@ccp.edu

Communicating with the Instructor

I enjoy teaching, interacting with students, and discussing the many aspects of cultural geography. I encourage you to ask questions, discuss issues, and have contact with me. I try to answer email within 24 hours.

Course Description

Cultural Geography is the area of geography examining the relationship between people, culture, and space. This course is a survey of the concepts and methods used in cultural geography. We will focus particularly on the use of maps as a way to examine cultural issues on large and small scales, on the development of the cultural use of space that underlies the modern world, and on the range of inequality and diversity in the modern world.

Course Objectives

By the end of the semester, in your written materials you should be able to demonstrate:

·	Familiarity with the basic terminology and concepts of cultural geography;
·	An ability to use and analyze a variety of maps;
·	An appreciation of the diversity of the modern use of space;
·	A practical ability to apply geographic principles to the space around you.

Course Goals

The goals of any course lie beyond the objectives; they are always worth working toward but not always immediately attainable. Hopefully, by the end of the semester we will all have an active curiosity about the social use of space, a basic understanding of the elements and meanings of geography, and an increased consciousness of social diversity.

Student Objectives and Goals

Research shows that people who clearly describe their objectives and goals are more likely to achieve them. The space below has been left blank as an invitation for you to fill in some of your own goals and objectives for this course. You should revisit these throughout the term.

Required Texts

H.J. de Blij and Peter O. Muller

Geography: Realms, Regions, and Concepts. 12th Edition. New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.

Most recent edition.

Supplementary Materials

The text publisher also provides a wide variety of supplementary and study materials on their website. I strongly encourage you to use this material. The site address is available in the text.

Grading Scale

A	180-200points	D	120-139 points
B	160-179 points	F	below 120 points
C	140-169 points

Grading

Introduction

The introduction is a brief exercise to experiment with the WebStudy system’s features.

Introduction and contact information (5 points total).

Assignments

Seven assignments will be written during this course. These assignments will provide you with an opportunity to explore issues in more depth, to make connections between the various topics, and to help stimulate the conversations in the forums.

The assignments are short papers between 450 – 550 words (worth 16 points each).

Forums

Seven forums will be held during this class, each is coordinated with the topics for the assignments. Discussion in the forums will include the issues raised by the assignments, as well as other ideas, questions, and thoughts arising from the class materials. Each forum will be available as the topic is covered, you will not be able to make late posts to any forums.

Contribution of at least ten substantive posts to each forum. Each forum worth 10 points.

Chapter Review

Every chapter has a set of brief review questions and the text provides a list of key terms. Very brief answers to these question will be submitted and scored as complete or not complete. The answers do need to be relevant to receive credit.

Answers to review questions of every chapter (worth 1 point each).

Final Grades

Final grades will be calculated by adding up the total number of points earned and comparing it to the grading scale (which appears above).

Late Assignments and Discussions

Forum posts must be submitted in a timely manner; posts submitted after the discussion in that forum is completed are not participation in the conversation. Consequently, the forums will be available as each topic is covered and will not accept late postings. All materials submitted late will be assessed a penalty of one point for every 24 hours it is late.

Plagiarism

All work submitted MUST be your own. Any material taken word-for-word (quoted) from a source of any kind must be put in quotation marks and the source information must be provided completely. Work from other students, including from other classes or previous semesters, from any term-paper-writing service, or from any other source may NOT be used under any circumstances. Plagiarism is stealing. Any evidence of plagiarism will result in failure, regardless of grades, and being reported to the College for academic fraud. When in doubt, provide full citation information.

NOTE: I have failed students in every semester for plagiarism!

Schedule:

Segment	Chapter	Topic
1	~~	Familiarize
2	Intro	World Regional Geography
3	1	Europe
4	2	Russia
5	3	North America
6	4	Middle (Central) America
7	5	South America
8	6	Sub-Saharan Africa
9	7	North Africa/Southwest Asia
10	8	South Asia
11	9	East Asia
12	10	Southeast Asia
13	11	The Austral Realm
14	12	The Pacific Realm
15	~~	What does it all mean?
16	~~	End of Term

Assignments:

Segment	Assignment	Topic
1	Intro	Introduction
2	1	Maps
4	2	Europe/Russia
7	3	North/Middle/South America
9	4	Africa
12	5	Asia
14	6	Australia/Pacific
15	7	And why do we care?

Forums:

Segment	Forum	Topic
1	Intro	Social
2	1	Maps
4	2	Europe/Russia
7	3	North/Middle/South America
9	4	Africa
12	5	Asia
14	6	Australia/Pacific
15	7	And why do we care?

(For actual dates, see course materials.)

Material	How Much?	How Many?	Total Available?
Introduction	5	1	5
Assignments	16	7	112
Forums	10	7	70
Chapter Review	1	13	13
		Totals	200