HOMEWORK: A08- Chapter 7 of Atlas for a Utah School Project – BIOSPHERE with a section on the relationship of physical geography on early Utah peoples.

OVERVIEW and INSTRUCTIONS

GEOGRAPHY of UTAH – Homework due Thursday, March 18.

Purpose of the homework assignment:

Apply concepts of geography to Utah and to Utah places.

Specifically discuss characteristics of Utah’s BIOSPHERE… meaning the living subsystems of Earth systems and understand that ecoregions include habitat as well as assemblages..

Recognize factors that affect natural assemblages of flora and fauna.

Recognize how characteristics of ecoregions impacted Utah’s early peoples.

Perhaps… recognize how impacts of humans of the past 500 years have impacted Utah’s biosphere.

Explore relationships of Utah ANTROPOLOGY and Utah’s physical GEOGRAPHY

EPA ECORETIONS Level III onto base, DEM by Sterner. LINK

EPA ECOREGIONS Level IIII. LINK

From Atlas of Utah, 1981, Weber State University.

Page 74 – PaleoIndianCultures;

Page 76 - ArchaicIndianCultures;

Page 75 - AgriculturalIndianCultures.

Assessment: This assignment will be graded:

25% on supporting files.

At least five maps, charts, schematics that show characteristics of the biosphere; information about Utah’s early peoples (12,000 years before present to 1800s AD). AT LEAST ONE should be from another source, meaning, a map, chart, schematic or illustration you found on the web, or scanned. For example: you could download the EPA file of Level 4 ecoregions from the course web site. Then you could show some of the flora and fauna typical of one of the dominant ecoregion types for your county.

75% on cover page discussion…

(a) Observations: write at least 5 characteristics of biosphere of “your” community / county as shown in your supporting files (maps, figures, tables,).

NOTE: the easiest way to do this is to list your figures on your cover sheet, meaning list the maps, charts, tables, images, AND write a caption for each of figures. If the caption reads: “note pinyon juniper is the dominant vegetative type of the foothills west of _____ school”… it is a “gold star” observation. Don’t hesitate to state the obvious. You may see patterns of ecoregions and the geosphere (e.g., sparse, salt-tolerant vegetation of basins of the basin and range; or forests of upland climate zones of Rocky Mountain physiographic province).

(b) Analysis: analyze the spatial distribution of ecoregion characteristics of your area. Think geographic thoughts (5 themes of geography; 5 subsystems of Earth systems) and characteristics of your ecoregions.

(c) Interpretation: Connect ANTHROPOLOGY / Utah’s Early Peoples and Utah’s physical geography by exploring effects of physical geography on early peoples of your location (for example, as local as your drainage basin; or as large as your county). Note: GEOG3600: Geography of Utah explores concepts of social and behavioral sciences and this assignment EXPLORES concepts of anthropology. When you are exploring, it’s Okay to use phrases that reflect uncertainty, where you are uncertain. Such phrases include: “it is possible that,” or “assuming that… “, or “an explanatory hypothesis could be that… “.

Note: In class we explored relationships of food, shelter, clothing, and movement for Utah’s early peoples, pre-horse. For this assignment, it’s okay to discuss the relationship of the biosphere and Utah’s early peoples up to 200 years ago.