【People's Education Press】High School Geography Compulsory Volume 1
This course is the first volume of the compulsory high school geography textbook, systematically introducing fundamental physical geography knowledge such as Earth in the universe, Earth's atmosphere, Earth's water, common landform types, vegetation and soil, and natural disasters, aiming to develop students' core geographical literacy.
Lessons
Course Overview
📚 Content Summary
This course is the first volume of the compulsory high school geography textbook, systematically introducing fundamental physical geography knowledge such as Earth in the universe, Earth's atmosphere, Earth's water, common landform types, vegetation and soil, and natural disasters. It aims to cultivate students' core geographical literacy.
Explore natural geographic patterns and unlock the scientific mysteries of our planetary home.
Author: Fan Jie, Gao Junchang
Acknowledgments: Reviewed and approved by the National Textbook Committee Expert Committee 2019
🎯 Learning Objectives
- Identify and Describe: Accurately describe Earth’s position within multi-level celestial systems, and distinguish the structural characteristics of Earth’s internal (crust, mantle, core) and external (atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, lithosphere) layers.
- Analyze and Summarize: Analyze the specific impacts of solar radiation and solar activity on Earth’s natural environment and human activities; summarize the patterns of geological time division and the main trends of biological evolution during each stage.
- Apply and Explore: Use fossil and stratigraphic knowledge to explain Earth’s history, and conduct scientific exploration into design schemes for a Mars base based on survival environment factors.
- Identify atmospheric components and explain the ecological significance of key substances such as carbon dioxide and ozone.
- Describe the characteristics of atmospheric vertical layering and explain the relationship between the troposphere and stratosphere with human activities.
- Apply principles of atmospheric heating processes to explain geographical phenomena such as the greenhouse effect and diurnal temperature variation.
- Master the Water Cycle: Accurately identify the stages and types of the water cycle, and explain their significance for water balance and material transfer.
- Analyze Seawater Properties: Summarize the patterns of seawater temperature, salinity, and density changes with latitude and depth, and understand the geographical factors influencing them.
- Evaluate Seawater Motion: Distinguish the causes and characteristics of waves, tides, and ocean currents, and analyze how ocean currents affect climate, marine life, and shipping.
- Identify and Describe: Accurately recognize the specific forms of karst (surface and subsurface), fluvial (V-shaped valleys, deltas, etc.), aeolian (crescent dunes), and coastal landforms.
Lessons
Overview: This chapter guides students to understand Earth’s macroscopic position in the universe and its microscopic structure. It covers the celestial system from cosmic scales down to Earth’s own layering, explores the multiple impacts of the Sun as an energy source on Earth, and thoroughly outlines Earth’s evolutionary journey spanning 4.6 billion years along with the phased characteristics of biological evolution. Finally, through research on a Mars base, it applies learned knowledge to practical thinking about interstellar exploration.
Learning Outcomes:
- Identify and Describe: Accurately describe Earth’s position within multi-level celestial systems, and distinguish the structural features of Earth’s internal (crust, mantle, core) and external (atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, lithosphere) layers.
- Analyze and Summarize: Analyze the specific effects of solar radiation and solar activity on Earth’s natural environment and human activities; summarize the patterns of geological time division and the primary trends of biological evolution across each period.
- Apply and Explore: Use fossil and stratigraphic knowledge to explain Earth’s history, and conduct scientific discussion on Mars base design plans incorporating survival environment factors.
Overview: This chapter provides a detailed exploration of Earth’s atmospheric basic properties and motion patterns. It covers atmospheric composition (dry clean air, water vapor, impurities), vertical stratification (troposphere, stratosphere, upper atmosphere), mechanisms of atmospheric heating (ground warming and atmospheric heat retention), thermally driven circulation caused by uneven heating (e.g., urban heat island effect), and analysis of horizontal atmospheric movement (wind). The chapter concludes with discussions on atmospheric environmental quality and pollution prevention.
Learning Outcomes:
- Identify atmospheric components and explain the ecological significance of key elements like carbon dioxide and ozone.
- Describe the characteristics of atmospheric vertical stratification and explain the connection between the troposphere and stratosphere with human activities.
- Apply principles of atmospheric heating processes to explain geographical phenomena such as the greenhouse effect and diurnal temperature variation.
Overview: This chapter delves into the dynamic processes of Earth’s hydrosphere and its physical and chemical characteristics. It focuses on the various stages of the water cycle (evaporation, transportation, precipitation, runoff, infiltration) and their geographical significance, systematically explains the distribution patterns of seawater temperature, salinity, and density, and analyzes the impacts of wave, tide, and current movements on the natural environment and human activities. It also explores the potential for developing sea ice resources.
Learning Outcomes:
- Master the Water Cycle: Accurately identify the stages and types of the water cycle, and explain their importance for water balance and material transfer.
- Analyze Seawater Properties: Summarize the patterns of seawater temperature, salinity, and density changes with latitude and depth, and understand the geographical factors driving these variations.
- Evaluate Seawater Motion: Differentiate the causes and characteristics of waves, tides, and ocean currents, and analyze how ocean currents influence climate, marine ecosystems, and maritime transport.
Overview: This course helps high school freshmen identify four common surface landform types (karst, fluvial, aeolian, coastal) and master scientific methods for observing landforms. Students will learn the observational sequence from macro to micro scale and be able to describe landform characteristics using core indicators such as elevation and slope, thereby understanding the patterns of natural geographic change.
Learning Outcomes:
- Identify and Describe: Accurately recognize specific forms of karst (surface and subsurface), fluvial (V-shaped valleys, deltas, etc.), aeolian (crescent dunes), and coastal landforms.
- Method Application: Master the observational sequence from macro to micro scale, and use topographic contour maps to calculate elevation and slope.
- Comprehensive Analysis: Analyze the impact of landforms on human activities and engineering site selection using specific cases (e.g., Dawaotu in Guizhou, Yarlung Zangbo River Valley).
Overview: This chapter focuses on two core elements in natural geography: vegetation and soil. It examines how vegetation adapts to climatic environments through vertical structure and ecological traits, details the distribution of four major forest types, and discusses grasslands and deserts. Simultaneously, it deeply explores the dimensions of soil observation, the five factors of soil formation, and how humans can achieve sustainable soil use through scientific management and remediation (e.g., saline-alkali land treatment).
Learning Outcomes:
- Identify tropical rainforests, evergreen broadleaf forests, deciduous broadleaf forests, and subarctic coniferous forests based on landscape features, and explain their relationship with environmental conditions.
- Master basic methods for observing soil, and describe soil characteristics in terms of color, texture, and profile structure.
- Analyze the roles of parent material, climate, organisms, topography, and time in soil formation, and understand the central role of biological cycles in fertility development.
Overview: This chapter focuses on major natural disasters affecting human living environments—meteorological and geological hazards—including their causes, distribution, and impacts. It also examines the interconnections among disasters (disaster chains), and explains how modern geographic information technologies (RS, GNSS) combined with social disaster prevention and mitigation measures (monitoring, defense, self-rescue) can reduce disaster losses.
Learning Outcomes:
- Identify and Analyze: Distinguish the characteristics and distribution patterns of meteorological disasters such as floods, droughts, typhoons, and cold waves, as well as geological disasters including earthquakes, landslides, and mudflows.
- Modeling Interconnections: Understand the interrelated nature of natural disasters and be able to draw and interpret typical disaster chains.
- Technology and Application: Explain the specific roles of remote sensing (RS) and global satellite navigation systems (GNSS) in disaster monitoring, early warning, and rescue operations.