Hello Geography Students,
Before I give you my background and interests, I promised that I would provide you with two useful websites. At Saddleback College, geography falls under the Social and Behavioral Science Division. This division has a very informative website and provides links and answers to many questions that students might have while attending the college. I highly recommend going to this website if you have questions. Another useful website while you are taking my geography course is the Saddleback Geography website.
Maureen's Bio:
I grew up in Santa Barbara, CA. and spent my first two years of college at Santa Barbara City College where I played soccer, worked abroad in Ireland one summer, and studied abroad in Florence, Italy. Entering college, I already new that I was going to major in geography. I had been lucky enough to travel as a kid and so was a natural geographer. For my last two years of undergraduate work, I transferred to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I am a huge college basketball fan so grew up watching UNC's basketball team. UNC also happened to have one of the best geography programs in the country so it worked out perfectly. After graduation, I moved to Chicago, IL. and was a transportation planner for the city of Chicago. I could only handle two years of their winters before I needed to get back to southern California. I moved to Long Beach, CA. to work on my Graduate degree in geography at CSU-LB. After my first year in graduate school, I began part-time teaching at local Community Colleges in the L.A. and O.C. region. In 2007, I obtained a full-time teaching position at San Bernardino Valley College. One year later, I applied for a geography position at Saddleback College......and here I am today!
I have many interested besides geography. You already know that I love to travel and include my pictures into my lectures for you all to visually see the different things we are learning about. A very good friend of mine who is also a geography professor has started his own travel company called GeoTours. I am lucky enough to be able to go on one of his summer trips each year. Right now, I am in the picture on his website of the group from Guatemala in front of the lava flow! I also travel for scuba diving. Some of my highlight dive trips have been to the Great Barrier Reef, the big island of Hawaii, but my favorite is Cozumel, Mexico.
Other important past times are hiking and cooking. Also important is music. I love almost all types of music. I am a huge fan of the Blues, Jazz, Rock, and Hip Hop. My favorite band is Dave Matthews Band. I spent my twenties traveling around the country with friends seeing the band perform. Last weekend was my 50th show which was at the Hollywood Bowl.
Lake Atitlan, Guatemala
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Semester Project: Photo Essay (Assignment #4)
Hello Geog 1 Students,
The physical geography discussed in class and in your text is not only found in exotic locations, but in your own immediate environment. Being able to recognize physical processes in the landscape is an important goal in this course. The purpose of this assignment is for you to practice your skills of geographic observation within your own community by applying concepts and topics that we cover in class and the text to Orange County.
As I mentioned in class, I will be providing you with some examples of pictures for different chapters in our textbook. As explained in the semester project hand out sheet you received this week, you will be creating a Photo Essay titled "The Physical Geography of Orange County." For each chapter that we cover in the course, you will pick a topic from the chapter. Once you have decided on a topic, you will take a picture that represents that topic. Remember that the picture MUST be taken in Orange County during this semester. It can not be from the Internet! You will write a paragraph analysis for each photo analyzing the topic and explaining how your picture represents the topic.
The following 5 photos are examples of topics found in chapters in the textbook. The one difference is that these photos were taken by me in Guatemala and Honduras not Orange County. I have done this on purpose to make sure that you do not just take my topic and idea and do the exact same thing. You need to be creative!
Topic: Hurricanes
Location: Roatan Island, Honduras
Date: June 28, 2010
Topic: Tropical Wet (Af)
Location: Puerto Barrios
Date: July 21, 2010
Topic: Physiological Adaptations
Location: Copan, Honduras
Date: June 25, 2010
Topic: Chemical Sedimentary Rocks
Location: Semuc Champey, Guatemala
Date: June 22, 2010
Topic: A'a lava flow
Location: Guatemala City, Guatemala
Date: June 16, 2010
Monday, August 16, 2010
Assignment 3 paragraph
While watching video #3 on how to add gadgets to a post, I created my 3rd post. I kept the message short just like John did and focused more on adding the gadgets. After spending some time looking through all the options of different gadgets, I didn't really find any that appealed to me except to add some of my photos. Once I had added a bunch of photos I saved it and posted it. Then I realized that I was also suppose to write this paragraph entry but the post had already been submitted. I looked to find if I could edit the first post but it didn't look like I could so I am now entering this new post to complete assignment #3. Can I go back and edit once a post has been submitted?
So far I am enjoying the blogging experience. I was out of the country for the last 9 days and did not have access to the internet. It was too bad because I would have loved to posted on my blog about all the amazing things I was seeing and doing in Manzanillo, Mexico. At this point, I find I have all kinds of questions forming in my head about blogging and how I can use it for my classes. Example: If I teach 3 different geography courses, would I need to create 3 different blogs for each so students don't have to sift through information that doesn't relate to their particular class?
So far I am enjoying the blogging experience. I was out of the country for the last 9 days and did not have access to the internet. It was too bad because I would have loved to posted on my blog about all the amazing things I was seeing and doing in Manzanillo, Mexico. At this point, I find I have all kinds of questions forming in my head about blogging and how I can use it for my classes. Example: If I teach 3 different geography courses, would I need to create 3 different blogs for each so students don't have to sift through information that doesn't relate to their particular class?
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
First Day of Geography Class
As we gear up for the fall semester, I want to prepare you for the first week of class. This information applies to both my Geog 1 and Geog 2 students. First and foremost, parking on campus is extremely difficult for about the first three weeks so you must plan accordingly. You should assume that it could take you up to 1 hour to find parking so come to campus early! This is very important on the first day of class since I am required by law to drop any student who does not show up on the first day, no exceptions. So don't lose your seat to students who are crashing, come early!
Second, the first day is when you will receive the course syllabus and we will go over all the important aspects of the class. This is very important so you understand the requirements of the course. There will be a quiz on the second day of class based on information on the syllabus so make sure you listen carefully and ask questions on the first day.
The last thing we will do on the first day of class is play "Sorting The Class." This is an in-class activity to help us learn a little bit about each other along with having some fun. The entire class will get up and stand in the middle of the room. There will be 3 - 5 questions that I ask the group as a whole with 3-4 possible answers to each. I will place the possible answers on the different walls in the classroom. Depending on how you would answer the question, you go and stand on that side of the room. An example question can be: What major league baseball team do you support? The possible choices could be: 1) Anaheim Angels 2) Los Angeles Dodgers 3) San Diego Padres 4) I don't like baseball
Once the class has picked which wall to stand next to we take a few minutes to see who is standing where and I will ask a few random student to tell us why they answered that way. I find this is a nice ice-breaker to kick off the semester and allow us to begin to get to know each other right off the bat. Get ready to participate and have some fun!
Second, the first day is when you will receive the course syllabus and we will go over all the important aspects of the class. This is very important so you understand the requirements of the course. There will be a quiz on the second day of class based on information on the syllabus so make sure you listen carefully and ask questions on the first day.
The last thing we will do on the first day of class is play "Sorting The Class." This is an in-class activity to help us learn a little bit about each other along with having some fun. The entire class will get up and stand in the middle of the room. There will be 3 - 5 questions that I ask the group as a whole with 3-4 possible answers to each. I will place the possible answers on the different walls in the classroom. Depending on how you would answer the question, you go and stand on that side of the room. An example question can be: What major league baseball team do you support? The possible choices could be: 1) Anaheim Angels 2) Los Angeles Dodgers 3) San Diego Padres 4) I don't like baseball
Once the class has picked which wall to stand next to we take a few minutes to see who is standing where and I will ask a few random student to tell us why they answered that way. I find this is a nice ice-breaker to kick off the semester and allow us to begin to get to know each other right off the bat. Get ready to participate and have some fun!
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