9 There is also relative location. Relative location describes where a place is in relation to something else. On a camping trip, you might describe your campsite as "just past the big boulder by the big pine tree." Another way is to tell how much time it takes to get there. You might tell a friend that your house is "a ten-minute walk south of my school."
10 The second theme is place. What kind of place is it? What comes to your mind when you think of different places like China, Australia, or Iceland? All three of these places have different climates and weather. Different animals live in each place. Different people live there, too. The people have different habits, clothing, and food.
11 People have built different kinds of homes and buildings in these different places. The way people change their places is a third theme of geography. It is called human/environment interaction. Both good things and bad things happen as a result.
12 When dams are built, some areas of land are flooded. People and animals must move. But the reservoir of the dam holds water. It supplies many people with drinking water. Dams also control flooding downstream.
13 Sometimes, the place changes the way people live. For example, when the first settlers moved into the Great Plains region, they had to change their ways of farming the land. Farming methods used in the East didn't work on the prairies.
14 Movement is a fourth theme. The way people move from place to place is different in different places. People need to move food and other items to the places where they live. Over the history of the United States, the ability to move people and things helped the United States grow westward.
15 People migrate from one country to another to get better jobs or for other reasons. The ease of moving has a big impact on how people live. Natural resources must also be moved from where they are found to where they can be used. Most people on Earth depend on the movement of goods.
16 Region is the fifth theme of geography. A region is an area. It makes geography easier to study if you look at smaller areas that have things in common. The things may be the land's physical features. They might be the humans who live there or their culture. Geographers also study how regions change over time.
17 Geography is the study of Earth. It is the study of its landforms and people. To make the study easier, we look at different regions of the Earth. Regions have things that are alike. They may be mountains or other physical features. They may be the people or animals who live there. It is also the study of how places and people change over time.