Assignment:
Project Overview: For this project, you'll choose a food or drink item, a cuisine, an invention, or an idea, and then research how four geographic concepts are related to and affect your topic. Instead of presenting your research as a traditional paper, you'll use PowerPoint to create a narrated presentation. Your presentation will be structured like a paper, including a title, introduction to the topic, main body, summary and conclusions, and references. Creative use of properly cited graphics and photos from the Internet relevant to your topic is required.
First, choose a food item, cuisine, invention, or idea that interests you. Some will have more information available about them than others, so it's worth doing some investigation before you settle on one. If you're not sure if your desired topic is appropriate, please feel free to ask!
Once you have selected your topic, you will then do research to see how each of the following geographic concepts affects or is related to your topic: 1. Region, 2. Cultural Landscape, 3. Diffusion, and 4. Distance decay. The first two concepts are covered in the first chapter of your textbook. Diffusion is covered, Section 2 (page 484). Distance decay refers to the fact that influence and interaction between locations decreases as the distance between them increases. As such, it has a significant influence on how things change as they diffuse away from their point of origin. Be sure to address these specific geographic terms and concepts in your work. You don't need to address them in this order, but you do need to address all of them. You may use "subsets" of these definitions (e.g. contagious diffusion) if such subsets exist.
Be sure to refer to your text and other reliable resources to ensure you completely understand these concepts. You should be detailed in your treatment of these concepts - for instance, you should explain both how and why your choice varies by region, and how and why it has been affected by distance decay. Remember that geography, as an academic discipline, seeks to explain why things vary from place to place, not just describe how they do.
You will complete this project in 3 separate assignments: an annotated bibliography, an outline, and your final presentation. In this assignment, you will complete your outline. Completing the project in separate assignments allows you to work your way up to the final presentation, and provides opportunity for feedback along the way.