Illustrated Dictionary of Physical Geography

About the Book

Preface

This Illustrated Dictionary of Physical Geography is the result of my reactions to problems I faced teaching geography in public secondary schools in an urban envi­ronment. I was never surprised by the fact that geographical knowledge among my students was minimal, for this condition seems to be a nationwide phenomenon. More to the point, students seemed to have difficulty understanding many geo­graphical concepts without some visual aids to learning. I found that if I illustrated a geographical term on the chalkboard, students could more easily comprehend it. This seemed to be true of all my students from the native born to the “newcomer.” The story doesn’t end here. In my researching geographical terms, I found vagueness and confusion in the vocabulary of this subject. The Caspian Sea is really a salt lake. One region’s hill is another’s mountain, and a creek in some places would seem like a river to visitors from arid places. Confusion notwithstanding, geography teachers need all the help that they can get in building the student’s vocabulary; I hope that this dictionary will be of good use.

I have italicized the defined words found in this dictionary for easy cross reference.

Henry T. Conserva
Sonoma, California

About the Author

Henry T. Conserva has taught in the public schools of California for over 50 years.  He has been a curriculum specialist in social studies for the San Francisco Unified School District and has taught student teachers at San Francisco State University.  He has done postgraduate study at Tel Aviv University in Israel and at Harvard’s Japan Institute.  He is the author of Earth Tales and Propaganda Techniques.