Term Project 1: Trans-continental Trip

This exercise, worth 25% of your final grade, requires you to prepare a written report on a make-believe trans-continental journey by car across our study area. It should be at least 20 pages long (including maps and photos as described below). Text should be double-spaced in 12 point type. Your make-believe itinerary must embody the following:

  1. Your travel must begin in a large city on the Atlantic Coast (excluding the Gulf of Mexico) of the United States or Canada, and terminate in a large city on the Pacific Coast of either country.
  2. Your itinerary may lie entirely within the U.S., or partly within the U.S. and partly within Canada, but cannot lie entirely within Canada.
  3. Your itinerary must include portions of at least seven regions as defined by the authors of your textbook.
  4. Your trip must include visits to at least five (5) major cities and five (5) national parks.

With respect to your actual paper/project:

  1. With the aid of your road atlas, include in your report at least five (5) maps that depict your itinerary. The first map, which must appear at the beginning of your report, should be a general map of North America that shows the entire route, as well as the major cities and national parks you visited. The other maps should show smaller segments of your itinerary in much greater detail including roads and route numbers, and points of interest. Together, the segments shown on these four maps should comprise the entire itinerary.
  2. Include one photograph taken in each region included in your itinerary. Your photos will be evaluated on the extent to which they capture the essence of their respective regions. Please include the source of each photo in your report.
  3. The names of the regions through which you travel should serve as the major headings/divisions of your paper.
  4. As is the case in your textbook, the maps and photographs should be consecutively numbered (i.e. Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.). Each should have a title.
  5. Your maps and photos should be incorporated into your text rather than appended.
  6. The narrative should combine objective description with make-believe. Thus, it should describe the places you visited, things that you did, people you met, etc. during your trip.
  7. The narrative should begin with a general overview and then proceed with a sequential (start to finish) recounting of your travels. Your grade will largely be based on (a) how well you followed directions; (b) your paper's overall content and organization; (c) the quality of your writing, and the extent to which you make it sound like you really did take the trip you are describing.
Term Project 2: Landscape Exercise

The purpose of this Web-based exercise, which is worth 25% of your grade, is to increase your knowledge of selected human and physical landscape features that characterize various parts of the United States and Canada.

You are required to submit a 20-page portfolio, to which is attached an additional cover page. Each page is to be headed by a title that corresponds to an item in the list below. The contents of each page must consist of at least one photo and/or map of the topic, together with a write-up that describes the subject and, if applicable, it's significance. The written description MUST be in your own words, and NOT merely something that you have cut-and-pasted from an online source. The verbal portion should be done in regular 12-point type and take up at least half the page. Typing should be single-spaced and have standard 1.5-inch margins to either side.

The landscape features you choose should be entirely different than materials you include in your hypothetical trip across North America - the subject of a different course requirement.

While information may be garnered from anywhere on the Web, I recommend you take a good look at Google, which has an excellent inventory of images, maps, and aerial/satellite photographs on a wide range of subjects. Sources of information should be cited where they are used. Every illustration must have a title and source. A separate bibliography is not required.

EXTRA CREDIT: You may earn up to 3 points to your final course average by submitting extra pages on the formula of 1 point per 3 pages. A maximum of 3 points (9 pages) may be earned.

Landscape features

Long lots of the St. Lawrence Valley and Southern Louisiana
The Welland Canal (example of the locks that connect the Great Lakes)
The Finger Lakes of Upstate New York
New York City's reservoir system
Containerization ports (e.g., Elizabeth, NJ; Oakland, CA)
The site and situation of Boston
The landscape of gentrification
The folded Appalachians
The "Amish country" of Southeastern Pennsylvania
The street pattern of Washington, DC
The poultry landscape of the Delmarva Peninsula
Strip mining and mountaintop removal in Appalachia
Residential development of the Atlantic coast
Florida's Gold Coast (Palm Beach to Miami Beach)
The Florida Keys
Agricultural and urban encroachment on the Everglades
The tourist landscape of Greater Orlando
The metes and bounds survey system
The Mississippi River Delta
The site and situation of New Orleans
Meander loops and oxbow lakes of the Mississippi flood plain
Rust belt landscapes of Detroit
The site and situation of St. Louis
Garden City, Kansas: feed lots
The Congressional Survey System
Wisconsin dairy farms
Farms in the area of "The Corn-Soy Complex"
The site and situation of Chicago
Wheat fields of the Dakotas or Prairie Provinces
Soil polygons in the tundra
A Native American Pueblo of the Southwest
Denver: From CBD to suburban fringe
The geysers of Yellowstone National Park
The U.S./Mexico border at El Paso/Juarez
The site and situation of Salt Lake City
Basin and Range topography
Aspen (conversion of mountainous areas to ski resorts)
Open pit mining in the Southwest
The saguaro cactus landscape of southern Arizona
The San Andreas fault
The apple orchard landscape of the Columbia River Valley, Washington State
Suburbia and enclosed malls
The Freeways of Los Angeles
The site and situation of San Francisco
Farming and irrigation in the San Joaquin Valley, CA
Napa Valley (CA) wine country
Big Sur
"Redwood country" of Northern California
The fjorded coast and "Inside Passage" of the Pacific Northwest
Clear cutting in the Pacific Northwest
The Cascade Range
Dams on the Columbia River
The site and situation of Vancouver, BC
The Hoh Rainforest, Olympic National Park, WA
Recent lava flows on the island of Hawaii
The site and situation of Honolulu
The site and situation of Valdez
The Alaskan tundra

Last updated February 17, 2011 .