 New River Trail (Wythe County) |
 Big Schloss (Shenandoah County) |
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New River Trail (Wythe County) |
Big Schloss (Shenandoah County) |
Technology Requirements
You'll need access to the Internet using a computer with a standard web browser. You may need to download a few plug-ins to view some sites (such as zooming in on the maps at the Library of Congress). You can view most, but not all of the "Geography of Virginia" content with a smartphone (but if you use an iPhone, you will not be able to see sites that use Flash images).
To view the streaming videos from GMU-TV, you will need a high-speed Internet connection. Don't even try with dial-up, or with one bar on your smartphone. If you have access to a television, you can check the broadcast schedule and record the programs each week.
Textbook
To learn your way around the state, especially the rural areas, you will need to purchase the Virginia Atlas and Gazetteer, costing roughly $20. That is the only textbook for this class. You may find the Virginia Atlas and Gazetteer at the GMU Bookstore, or buy it directly from the publisher (DeLorme). The Virginia Atlas and Gazetteer is also available from many Wal*Mart stores, stores that serve hunters and campers, and even some large gas stations and 7-11's.
Field Trips
We'll use online text, pictures, and streaming video - but the best images will be those you notice with your own eyes and ears, outdoors and away from the electronic screen. Spend this semester observing the scenes around you, and try to place what you see into context. There are geologic, political, economic, and many other factors that helped to shape the scenes you observe each day.
Your ability to connect the dots and interpret what you see may be a bit blurry right now. After finishing this class, however, your ability to focus and "see" the geographic setting, putting a particular view into context, should be substantially enhanced. Before the class is over, you will be able to define different regions - of Virginia and defend where you drew the boundaries to separate Northern Virginia from the Piedmont, or Southside Virginia from Hampton Roads. (If you can convince others that your definition of "Tidewater" is correct, then you earn at least a gold star...)
Short field trips, near where you live or work, will be your basis for Field Trip Reports. There are 11 of them, but the lowest grade will be dropped, so the best 10 reports that get counted are worth 20% of your final grade. In addition, three optional field trips led by the instructor are listed on the class schedule. Participation and reports on, one, two, or all three of those field trips will give you a chance to apply in real life what you have been learning online (and earn additional extra credit, of course).
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Key Dates September 6: OPTIONAL meeting with instructor, in Room 162 of Research Hall, between 3:00-4:00pm or 6:30-7:30pm September 11: OPTIONAL Great Falls field trip (led by instructor) on Sunday, 1:00pm-5:00pm September 15: Quiz #1 posted on Blackboard September 18: Quiz #1, first Field Trip report (and optional Great Falls field trip) due by midnight September 22: Quiz #2 posted on Blackboard September 22: submit draft topics for Explain a Place and Explain an Issue reports September 25: Quiz #2 second Field Trip report due by midnight September 29: Quiz #3 posted on Blackboard
October 2: Quiz #3, third Field Trip report due by midnight
November 3: Quiz #8 posted on Blackboard
December 1: submit final Explain an Issue report
 vineyard at the Tomahawk Winery (Pittsylvania County) |
How Will Grades Be Determined?
Grades will be based on a total of 1,000 points:
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Field Trip Reports (20 points each, 200 points total)
Almost every week includes a short, see-for-yourself-in-your-neighborhood exercise. The objective is to link the real world with the academic exercise of learning geography. Look at the topography, the economic growth, the transportation pattern, and even how we are conserving special places near where you live or work. You should be able to incorporate many of these field trips in your normal routine, just by being more observant as you walk/bike/drive through Northern Virginia. Spend an extra 15-30 minutes, about once a week throughout the semester, and discover your personal places in more depth.
A short one-page report must be submitted for 11 of these field trips. The best 10 grades will be counted, so if you miss a week... that's OK. Reports should include the following: Each report is worth 20 points, and is due at the same time each of the 11 quizzes is due. If you do the math, dropping the lowest grade and counting the best 10, these field trip reports are worth 20% of the total grade for the semester. In addition, there will be three OPTIONAL, instructor-led field trips. Dates and times are listed in the schedule. You can earn extra credit for submitting short reports after participating in those field trips. |
 summertime fun on Lake Jackson (Prince William County)
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"Explain a Place" Report (50 points)
Each student will create a 2-3 page report (single-spaced, not counting images, maps, and references) describing a particular place in Virginia (such as a city, county, park, mountain, historic site, etc.). Description should include the current physical characteristics (geology, topography, watersheds...), the evolution of current cultural patterns (how the place developed to look it does today), and predictions for how the place will change over the next 20-100 years (with justifications for the predictions, based on population patterns, potential for new economic development, anticipated environmental changes, etc.).
You are encouraged to discuss your research with the instructor via e-mail as you complete your draft and final versions of this report. When you submit your proposed choice, identify your planned sources, including books, newspaper/magazine articles, databases, websites, and atlas/map resources. I will review your selection of the topic, offer suggested sources, and critique the first draft (and perhaps other versions before you submit the Final Draft).
"Place-Based Issue" Report (50 points)
This exercise, also a written 2-3 page report (single-spaced, not counting images, maps, and references), should focus on some controversial geographic issue in Virginia. Pick a position statement that you defend or challenge, such as "the Loudoun Board of County Supervisors should support plans for a new highway, parallel to and east of existing Route 15" or "Charlottesville should abandon its city charter and revert to town status."
You could also tackle some other facet about Virginia geography, such as "Early colonial settlement in the Shenandoah Valley was shaped more by the geology and soils than by the location of the gaps across the Blue Ridge Mountains" or "the change in tolls on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel is transforming Northampton County and stimulating suburban sprawl." (Almost all political and budget issues in the news will have some geographic component, usually based on who will benefit vs. who will pay.)
You could put yourself in the role of a key manager of Ticketmaster, looking for a location for a new telephone call center. Why (or why not) would you choose a location in Henry County? Put yourself in the role of a key manager at RR Donnelley & Sons, planning to build a new plant for printing telephone directories. Why would you choose a particular location in Virginia?
This is an exercise in applied geography. The information must be organized to address a thesis or topic. A compilation of regurgitated and unconnected facts, or a series of unsupported opinions, will not qualify as an acceptable presentation/report.
Use what you learn in the Geography of Virginia class to deal with an issue in the real world, outside of GMU. The material in your report must be condensed, almost equivalent to what you might get a chance to say in a lunchtime conversation or a discussion in the carpool about a political issue. Use this college class to practice condensing your ideas and opinions into a short conversation, and to incorporate the factual basis that supports your opinion, so people will consider your suggestions to be "savvy" rather than "sorry."
If pictures are worth a thousand words... maps are worth a million. A map accompanying the paper is highly recommended to illustrate your words. Use the map to show you understand the spatial relationships associated with the content of your paper.
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Pick a topic that interests you from the list below, or contact the instructor to discuss a proposed topic. Organize the paper so the question is identified clearly at the start. Write so your fellow classmates can understand your answer to the question - your paper may be posted where class participants can see it, so we can all learn something from our research efforts.
Some possible topics:
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 Can you identify the Piedmont, west of the Coastal Plain and east of the Blue Ridge? Source: National Atlas |
Online Quizzes (50 points each, 500 points total)
This class includes 11 online quizzes in just one semester, so there is regular feedback on progress. With each quiz, students will demonstrate what they know and discover what they still need to study. Each quiz is worth 50 points, and the lowest grade is dropped. (Only the best 10 grades are counted, so you can miss a quiz, or screw up one week, and not affect your final grade.)
You'll know after the quizzes are graded if you are on track to get an A... or need to step up the studying several notches before final grades are submitted to the Registrar. The almost-weekly quizzes also guarantee that you can *not* wait to get serious about reading the material. You've registered and paid tuition. It's your money and your time. Don't cheat yourself; do the work and get a good return on your investment.
Quizzes will be administered online by Blackboard. (Be sure to log in at http://mymason.gmu.edu, click on the Courses tab and locate the GGS380 course link in the 9.1 Course List.) Quiz questions will come from the reading material assigned each week, online class discussions on the "Geography of Virginia" blog, and from online databases/mapping websites used in exercises with the assigned readings each week.
All quizzes will be open book. "Open Book" means you can use books, videos, newspapers, Web pages, atlases, USGS topo maps, aerial photography, the DeLorme Virginia Atlas and Gazetteer, the state highway map, etc... but you must answer all the questions yourself, without assistance. You can not get assistance on a particular question from other people. You can NOT post the questions on Facebook and hope others will do the research/remembering/thinking for you...
You can earn 500 total possible points from the best 10 (out of 11 total) quizzes. Each quiz is only 5% of the total number of points for the class, but together those top 10 quizzes make up 50% of the final grade.
The quizzes will have a mix of 10-15 questions. A few will require you to match items in one column with the appropriate item in a second column (such as "here is a list of rivers and counties - match the county with the river that runs through it") or fill in the blank. Most questions will be multiple choice. You will select what you consider to be the one correct answer for each question, and then turn in the quiz by clicking the Submit button.
NOTE: Quizzes are posted on Thursday, and close at midnight on Sunday. Blackboard allows you to partially complete a quiz, save your answers, then return to the quiz and complete it later. You can start on Thursday night and finish on Sunday, or you can complete the entire quiz in one sitting. Be careful to "save" - but do not "submit" your answers until you are completely finished.
Expect quizzes to ask questions from the most recent class, and from previous classes in the semester. The Final Exam will also be cumulative, with questions on the material covered in the first week as well as the last week. After all, life is cumulative - when you go to sleep at night, you don't forget how to drive a car and start life from scratch the next morning. At the end of the semester you should be able to discuss all the material we covered, from the start of the semester to the last class.
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Multiple choice questions will have only one correct answer, but choices may be difficult. Because the material is open book, questions typically require you to use critical thinking skills rather than just find a factoid. You should answer the questions by pick the choice that is "most correct" to you. Quizzes demonstrate that you can think with a place-based orientation ("where is Virginia Beach in relation to the Roanoke River?") and apply what you have learned ("why does Virginia Beach get some of its drinking water from the Roanoke River, requiring an expensive pipeline stretching so far away from the city?").
You may find it challenging to select the correct answer, if your previous experience with geography was to memorize-and-regurgitate the capitals of the 50 states. This is a university-level class intended to strengthen your critical thinking capabilities, not to test your memorization talents. Quizzes for this class are open book because in the real world, if you need to know the water source for the City of Fairfax or the name of the reservoir in Franklin County, you can Google for it (or even look it up in a printed atlas). If you don't understand why you missed a quiz question, then ask for clarification so you will get the answer right when a similar question appears on a future quiz or the final exam. This is not an invitation to haggle for getting retroactive credit for quiz questions. The focus on the discussion should be increasing your understanding of the course material, and why one answer is "more correct" that the other choices.
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 historic James River and Kanawha Canal lock, with modern Blue Ridge Parkway bridge in background (Bedford County) |
See other learning opportunities at:
- Department of Geography and Geoinformation Science
- New Century College
Commitment to Diversity StatementGeorge Mason University celebrates diversity and strives to have faculty, staff and students that reflect the diversity of our plural society. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, class, linguistic background, religion, gender identity, sex, sexual orientation, ethnicity, age, or physical ability.
Statement on the Honor Code and Academic IntegrityThe integrity of the University community is affected by the individual choices made by each of us. GMU has an Honor Code with clear guidelines regarding academic integrity. Three fundamental and rather simple principles to follow at all times are that: (1) all work submitted be your own; (2) when using the work or ideas of others, including fellow students, give full credit through accurate citations; and (3) if you are uncertain about the ground rules on a particular assignment, ask for clarification. No grade is important enough to justify academic misconduct. If you feel unusual pressure or anxiety about your grade in this or any other course, please talk with us or to a trusted friend or counselor to get your situation in perspective. The University provides a range of service to help with test anxiety, writing skills, study skills, and other related concerns. In this class, projects are designed to be undertaken individually. You may discuss your ideas with others or ask for feedback; however, it is not appropriate to give your paper to someone else to revise. You are responsible for making certain that there is no question that the work you hand in is your own. If only your name appears on an assignment, your professor has the right to expect that you have done the work yourself, fully and independently. Using someone else’s words or ideas without giving them credit is plagiarism, a very serious offense. It is very important to understand how to prevent committing plagiarism when using material from a source. If you wish to quote verbatim, you must use the exact words (including punctuation) just as it appears in the original and you must use quotation marks and page number(s) in your citation. If you want to paraphrase ideas from a source, that is, convey the author’s ideas in your own words - you must still cite the source, using a format (such as MLA or APA) that enables the reader to find your source. The re-use of papers, presentations, etc., from one course in another course is not appropriate. |
 Field trip in "Virginia From the Ground Up" class, exploring German-style barn at Bushong Farm, New Market Battlefield State Historical Park |
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