Commentary on the intent of Pennsylvania's Geography Standards 

 

Geography is an integrative discipline that enables students to apply geography skills and knowledge to life situations at home, at work and in the community. The content of geography is the physical and human phenomena that make up the world's environments and places.  The Pennsylvania Academic Standards were build on using geographic tools as a means for asking and answering geographic questions; setting information into a range of spatial contexts; recognizing places and regions as human concepts; understanding the physical processes that have shaped Earth's surface and the patterns resulting from those processes; identifying the relationships between people and environments; recognizing the characteristics and distribution of people and cultures on Earth's surface; focusing on the spatial patterns of settlements and their resulting political structures; and exploring the networks of economic interdependence and the importance of resources.