Introduction

On December 26 British schoolgirl Tilly Smith, ten, sensed something was wrong while on the beach with her family. Her mind kept going back to the geography lesson Mr. Kearney gave just two weeks before she flew out to a Thai resort with her family. "The water was swelling and kept coming in," recalled Penny Smith, Tilly's mother. "There was froth on it like you get on the top of a beer. The sea was like a millpond before [the swelling began]." "The beach was getting smaller and smaller," said Penny Smith, 43. "I felt compelled to look, but I didn't know what was happening. Then Tilly said she'd just studied this at school—she talked about tectonic plates and an earthquake under the sea. She got more and more hysterical. In the end she was screaming at us to get off the beach." ¹

This photo shows some of the damage inflicted by the Asian tsunami in 2004 that was witnessed by Tilly Smith and which killed tens of thousands of people. (U.S. Department of Defense, 2005)

Perhaps you have wondered why you need to learn the material in this geography course. One of the most significant reasons is so you can benefit from past experiences in order to understand the present and to make predictions for the future. Knowledge is passed from one generation to the next, often with more information being added as new generations make new discoveries. During the 2004 tsunami, Tilly Smith and the people with her were not the only ones who survived the catastrophe because they knew what to do. Entire villages of primitive islanders situated in the path of the water survived because of their knowledge of the sea. They knew what the signs meant and they knew what to do. Contrast this with the more than a quarter million people who died as a result of the tsunami and the earthquake that caused it. It is believed that most of the deaths could have been prevented if the people had recognized the signs and if there had been a warning system.

During this lesson we will take a look at the forces that shape our world, including the catastrophic events which sometimes accompany them, such as earthquakes and tsunamis. Our understanding of the world around us enables us to make informed and intelligent decisions that can affect our very survival. The more we know about this planet that we live on, the better prepared we can be to face the challenges that inevitably come.

• Objective 1:  Describe the major zones of the earth's interior.
• Objective 2:  Describe the effects of the earth's internal forces.
• Objective 3:  Describe the effects of some of the natural hazards that occur as a result of the earth's internal forces.
• Objective 4:  Identify the ways that weathering and erosion change the earth's surface.
• Objective 5:  Identify Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia on a map.

Footnotes

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