Maps
This map feature explains what the different symbols, colors, and lines on a map represent.
What is a map key (or legend)?
Earthquakes are caused when blocks of Earth's crust slide against one another at these locations.
What are plate boundaries?
Unlike short-term weather conditions, this term refers to the long-term average atmospheric pattern over many years.
What is climate?
Accounting for roughly 70% of global freshwater withdrawals, this major human sector is the single largest consumer of water worldwide.
What is agriculture (or farming/irrigation)?
The practice of using Earth's resources responsibly to satisfy present human needs without exhausting resources for future generations.
What is sustainability?
If you want to figure out the actual distance in miles between two cities on a state map, you use this feature.
What is a map scale?
Located at the center of the Earth, this is the innermost layer of the planet.
What is the core?
Located at 0 degrees latitude, this line receives direct solar radiation year-round, resulting in a consistently warm tropical climate.
What is the Equator?
Rain, snow, sleet, and hail returning water from clouds back down to Earth's surface represent this process.
What is precipitation?
The large-scale removal of forests by humans that leads to severe habitat loss, soil erosion, and increased atmospheric carbon dioxide.
What is deforestation?
Geographers use these imaginary lines to pinpoint any exact location on Earth.
What are latitude and longitude?
This major landform is created when two continental plates collide at a convergent boundary.
What is a mountain (or mountain range)?
This climate region experiences extremely low annual precipitation and can feature either high or low temperature extremes.
What is a desert (or arid climate region)?
The stage in the water cycle where invisible water vapor cools and transforms back into liquid water droplets to form clouds.
What is condensation?
Solar, wind, and hydroelectric power are examples of these resources that naturally replenish over short periods.
What are renewable resources?
This famous map projection keeps grid lines straight for ocean navigation but heavily distorts landmass sizes near the poles.
What is the Mercator projection?
Earth's tilt combined with its annual revolution around the Sun creates these recurring changes throughout the year.
What are seasons?
A cold climate region characterized by extremely low temperatures, short summers, and permafrost.
What is the tundra?
This industrial process converts ocean water into freshwater by removing salt and minerals, though it requires a significant amount of energy.
What is desalination?
Coal, oil, and natural gas belong to this non-renewable energy category formed over millions of years from ancient organic material.
What are fossil fuels?
Equal-area map projections are inaccurate because they cause distortions to these two aspects of landmasses.
What are directions and shapes?
Occurring in spring and autumn, these two days of the year feature equal lengths of daytime and nighttime everywhere on Earth.
What are equinoxes?
Characterized by warm, dry summers and mild, wet winters, this climate region is famous for growing olives and grapes and is found in southern Europe, coastal California, and parts of Chile and Australia.
What is the Mediterranean climate region?
Because water is neither created nor destroyed on Earth, the water cycle is categorized as this type of system where the total amount of water remains constant.
What is a closed system?
The total amount of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide, emitted into the atmosphere by a person's or country's daily energy consumption.
What is a carbon footprint?