Broward College Geography Review
About the Course
The course consisted of 10 modules about 10 geographic regions of the world, all based on a free to use book World Regional Geography, by Caitlin Finlayson, 2021. (It's under creative commons license.)
Each module lasted a week from Monday to Monday 11:30pm and there was a Final Essay stretched over the last few modules.
Each module consisted of:
Reading section with an
- Introduction into the topic by the teacher
- Chapter of the textbook we had to read
- Additional notes by the teacher regarding confusing content in the book
The Assignment section consisted of:
- Reflection Notes (submit notes taken while reading the book.)
- Quiz (10 questions regarding course content), the questions were multiple choice 4 answers average difficulty.
- Discussion of some topic related or common the the region being studied. eg. for Africa it was the exploitation of resources by western mining corporations.
- Map Lab: We were taught to use the arcgis.com software/website to create maps and how to embed available data into those maps.
- Passport Assignment: you had a list (3 or 4) of 1-2h documentaries to choose from (at least one was free others were on Amazon or other paid platform) that you had to watch and either record an text/video/audio report on it's content's and your opinion. (I always did text, got 24/25 every time)
There was also a Final which was also the Gordan Rule Writing Credit. You had to choose a non-historical topic about a country and write a 4 page paper with a minimum of 5 sources 2 of which had to be academic journals, all APA styled.
Personal Experience and Opinion
I took the course over Spring semester 2023. Rough time spent per week: 5h Aproximate Breakdown:
Assignment | Time | Grades |
---|---|---|
Textbook and Reflection Notes | 2h | 100% |
Quiz | 10min | 80-100% |
Discussion | 30min-1h | 100% |
Map Lab | 10-30min | 100% |
Passport Assignment | 90+40min | 96% (messed up some formatting) |
Final Assignment | 10h | 93% rushed text with bad formatting |
I knew most of the content from History and Middle School Geography classes. To me it was a very easy elective not worth taking, the main source of information was the book, which you could do on your spare time. Besides I am sure there are better books out there.
The quiz was what you would expect from a typical class.
Discussions were interesting, but I had a feeling like everybody else in the class was just trying to get the work done, although I did find some interesting opinions and information in some posts and replies.
Although Map Labs were kinda cool, all we did on every step was follow the instructions. There was no conclusion to Map Labs, and it just ended with it going over all the features. There was no apparent benefit in doing the exercises.
Passport Assignment was to watch a documentary. Same thing as the book. Although some of the documentaries were interesting, writing down the reports took a while, I could have watched documentaries on my own time of I wanted.
For the Final Assessment I almost didn't use any knowledge gained from the course. It would have been a great place to use Map Lab, but I found out that ArcGis severely lacks data on my topic, and data provided by other sources was more useful and easier to access.
Should You take it?
The teacher was nice and the explanations for hard topics from the book were pretty well made:
- Teacher: 8/10
You would know most of the material from History classes and you could just read the book (which is actually pretty well made) yourself or find a better one (eg. Here).
- Material: 6/10
Assignments were well made but easy, nothing you wouldn't be able to teach yourself (keep in mind I am a programmer, so my self-teaching skills are above average.)
- Assignments: 5/10
The Final had some rather mysterious formatting requirements (or maybe I was just to lazy to ask), but was severely unrelated to the main contents of the course at least for my topic, it actually taught me a lot about how to write professional papers, which was probably my biggest takeaway from the course.
- Final: 8/10
I wouldn't recommend taking the course, because you can teach yourself exactly what you want to learn (ask ChatGPT or Bard to give you some starting points), and it felt a bit like middle school level stuff overall.
I think you would be able to learn more from playing GeoGuesser or one of it's alternatives. Even better if you master Google Earth, Overpass Turbo, and maybe even master some self-teaching skills. I promise 1 hour of Map Men content will be a more productive use of your time than any of the documentaries.
Since I have slaughtered the course, I will give it the credit it deserves by giving it a shout-out for using a free book.
If you do choose to take it, here are some Final Assessment topic ideas:
- Effects of internet access on education in Thailand.
<- the one I used
- Effects of Air pollution on weather in Chile.
- Effects of urbanization and environmental damage on Mongolian traditional ways of life.
- Increase of Chess popularity in Norway after Magnus Carlsen became world champion.
- Comparison of metal health of professional workers against that of pro-gamers in South Korea.
- very qualified course rating expert