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Geography: Home

Research Resources for Geography

About The Guide

  • Look for information nuggets called "LITS Tips" scattered throughout this guide. You can find these information nuggets by hovering over the icons for additional tips and tools. There are other "LITS Tips" that don't have the information icon so look out for those as well. 
  • The "Check Your Knowledge" boxes provide definitions of library and academic terminology. The content in these boxes help with understanding important terms that will aid in deciding which library resources you will use along with determining the most suitable practices for conducting research.
  • Click this link for information on how to connect to library resources and materials found on this guide if you are off campus. 

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Caro Pinto
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Check Your Knowledge: What is Geography?

Beginning in 1837, Mount Holyoke founder Mary Lyon listed geography among the prerequisites for the entering class.

 Geography serves as a bridge between the physical and the cultural worlds as an integrated discipline that studies the relationships between people, places, societies, and the environment. Human geography (a social science) is concerned especially with the political, economic, social, and cultural processes and resource practices that give definition to particular places and spaces. Physical geography (a natural science) focuses on the physical processes that shape the patterns of the earth’s surface, including landforms, climate, and ecosystems. Geography also examines the science of earth systems, the human dimensions of global environmental and climate change, and the use of geographic information science (GIS) and remote sensing techniques to represent and analyze data and knowledge at different spatial scales. 

Holistic Synthesis: Connecting Knowledge Across Geography

Geography is an interdisciplinary field comprised of two branches; physical and human geography that integrate various academic disciplines from the social sciences and the natural sciences. Holistic synthesis encourages geographers to think across space and place through a variety of scholarly lenses. 

Subject Keywords and Terms

Atmosphere

Biosphere

Cartography 

Cultural apparatus 

Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

Geography 

Geopolitics 

Geospatial Technologies 

Geosystems

Global

Globalization 

Hydrosphere 

Interdependence 

Lithosphere

Local

Migration

Place

Remote sensing 

Scale 

Space

Spatial diffusion 

Time/Temporal 

Urbanization 

Mount Holyoke Geography Department

The geography department at Mount Holyoke integrates both human and physical geography into its program and is located in Clapp Laboratory. 

Authors

This guide was created through the collaborative work of April L. Graham FP'18, Caro Pinto, Julie Adamo, Mary Stettner, Dr. Mary Glackin, and Dr. Serin D. Houston. 

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