Tag Archives: Module 1

Getting to Know you – Syed Amirul

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Salam Sejahtera!

My name is Syed Amirul, I am currently a Senior majoring in Economics (BA). I have now lived in State College, Pennsylvania for four years, but I was born and raised in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (which was why I greeted you in Bahasa Malaysia- it means hello!). I have a keen interest in photography so I might pursue a career in doing commercial photography while helping my family run our business. My interest in this course is to generally learn about the Earth. I’m always interested in learning about the nature ( I took meteorology and astronomy classes) and I think learning geography will help me connect the dots between human and environment interaction and its effects towards one another. One fun fact about me- I can solve a Rubik’s cube in 40 seconds. If anyone could solve it faster, please teach me!

Now that we’ve been introduced to some perspectives in the field of geography, one example that came in mind was an issue that’s becoming a national controversy in my country. In Pahang, the largest state in Peninsula Malaysia, the government are being condemned after active bauxite mining that has turned into a harmful economic activity to the locals of the area. Many reports have address the issue and its negative impact, one coming from Malaysian Society of Marine Sciences chairman Dr Harinder Rai Singh who said the contamination would be fatal to marine life. The coast of Pahang are mostly contaminated and is bound to be ‘dead sea’ within three years. This issue is important to be scrutinized on, mainly on how the human-environment interaction caused these harmful conditions, and how that in turn will affect the lives of humans living in the vicinity of the polluted area.

Getting To Know You: M01, GEOG 30

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Hello Class! My name is Jordan Dodderer. I am originally from Johnstown, Ohio but have since moved to Los Angeles, CA where I am a professional dancer for television, movies and music artists. It was always a dream of mine to pursue a dance career and the past 7 years have afforded me a great career in the entertainment industry. Another lifelong dream of mine was to receive my college diploma and so, I am pursuing my degree in Political Science through Penn State University World Campus. My pursuit of the degree at this point in time is really just to enhance my knowledge of the world at large and engage in thoughtful discussions in an academic setting. However, I am open to a future career change that is engaged in the political spectrum. I am taking this course in connection with understanding the political nature of human-environment interactions. I am excited to explore this area of study with you all!

 

The issue of governance resonates strongly with me as a resident of Southern California. The policy decisions made by governance have greatly affected our water resources and lead the region into a major drought in recent years. Many cities have enforced strict regulations on water usage, while others have enforced greater taxes on water consumption. Politically, the state has refused to impose these same regulations on farmers. I find this of particular interest in regards to the social aspect of human environment interactions and governance. Policy makers clearly regard that water is vital to the agriculture industry and keeping the land fertile with unrestricted water usage continues to drain the state water supply even as city residents continue to reduce their consumption effectively. Of course, there are no right and wrong answers to the policy debate, but I this specific example from my own experience came to mind as I read the descriptions of the importance of governance within Geography.

Getting to Know Sebastian Hollabaugh

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Hello everybody! My name is Sebastian Hollabaugh. I currently live off campus at University Park, PA, but I grew up in Sunbury, PA. I’m currently in my last semester as an Architectural Engineer. I will be working in the Philadelphia area starting in June once I finish up. One of my biggest hobbies is competing in Super Smash Bros. for the Nintendo 64. It is quite different from more its recent iterations, and I enjoy competing at local and national tournaments in it.

As an architectural engineer I think that buildings are very interesting, and geography has arguably the biggest impact on building design. The physical landscape, location, and local environment provide the basis when designing a building. I think an issue that geography is well suited for is mapping climate zones to address specific building mechanical systems. Since climate change is occurring relatively rapidly, maintaining an updated climate map is essential for system selection in relation to buildings. For example, the choice heat or enthalpy recovery is greatly dependent on location, and having a reliable climate map is necessary for making the proper selection.

Getting to Know You, Module 1

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Hello class, my name is Katy Bordt. I am currently living in State College while I am attending PSU. I grew up outside of Pittsburgh. I am pursuing a career in Nuclear Engineering. I am interested in this course because it is extremely different than my engineering classes. Furthermore, I want to know more about the environment and what has to be done to sustain our current environment. This is my first Geography course. I have taken many other general electives in my 5 years at PSU, such as Anthropology and Kinesiology courses. Also,  I love studying different reglions and cultures. I am an animal lover, mostly a dog lover.  I have a rescue dog name Aurora currently, she used to be an Alaskan sled dog. Currently, she is in her glory with the cold weather and snow on the way.

From Module 1, I believe being able to visualize what is happening in a specific place is very important. I believe maps are a very useful tool.  However, after seeing the different tube maps in the module show how differently maps can be distorted.  It shows that maps should not be taken at face value. Also, I believe the most important concept from the first module is human-environment interactions. I believe humans are the making the most impact on today’s environment. I believe that something needs to be changed in the way we as humans abuse the environment. If any classmates have opinions or ideas on what should be changed to help make our environment more sustainable I would love to hear them.

Module 1: Getting to know you

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My name is Jason Brown, but I like to go by J.R. I am a freshman here at Penn State University. I am originally from Canton, Ohio, but moved to McMurray, PA when I was three years old. I’ve lived there my whole life basically. McMurray is about 30 minutes south of Pittsburgh, PA. I am currently pursuing a degree in marketing and someday hope to obtain a job with an NHL teams’ marketing department. This course interests me because I have never gotten to take an extensive geography class before. I want to learn more on the subject and see its impact on our lives. Also, I thought it would be great to take this as an intro to my first online class at PSU because of its different components. Other facts about me are that I love hockey and grew up playing the sport and someday hope to be able to travel to all of the 50 US states.

 

In Module 1, one of the main pages that interested me was human- environment interactions. I want to study more about how human decision making have changed the Earth’s ecosystems. Also, the concepts of governance and ethics stuck out to me. I want to study how humans make these decisions that can highly impact the environment. Geography is interesting to me after reading module 1 because before this I had no clue how much is involved in it. In high school when we talked about geography, we always just learned about the different types of maps and the continents different ecosystems/ features. I cannot wait to learn about this topic and get more info than ever before.