Why Earth Science?

By Dr. Edmar Bernardes DaSilva with Dr. Robb Kvasnak

Earth Science commonly called GEOGRAPHY and also called GEOSCIENCE is a very important discipline in this modern and globalized world. The USA school system K-12 is not doing the job of teaching geography to their students. Even on the college level, little is done to educate students in Geography. In the USA the knowledge of geography is exceptionally poor compared with other countries (eg. Finland). Do you think that this lack of geographical knowledge is a syndrome of big countries? Because it seems to me that USA, Brazil, Russia, China and Canada are countries where geography is not a very important subject matter lately.
Geography is the mother of all sciences, founded by the ancient Greeks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxbIJH4fTYo

Wine Producing in Central Florida!

By Dr. Edmar Bernardes DaSilva with Dr. Robb N. Kvasnak

Visiting Orlando I leaned that Florida also produces wine. I never knew Florida was a wine producer. Believe me it is. The wine region of Florida is located in the Central Highlands a little north of Clermont. Region where the physical geography is made up of rollings hills and a great number or lakes. The winery itself is located at approximately 100 m above sealevel.

Lakeridge Winery is a lovely place where you can experience wine making, tasting and also can see a closeup of the vines. The winery building reminds you of a house in southern Spain. Inside you will fine loads of local wines and other souvernirs related with wine drinking. Southern Red, which remindes me of the Brazilian wine Sangue de Boi (Ox Blood) and the Portuguese wine Vinho do Porto (Port Wine), Couvé Noir Reserve, which remindes of a wine produced in the upper São Francisco River region in Brazil, Couvée Blanc, Blanc Du Bois, Chablis, Sunblush, Pink Crescendo, Southern White are the wines produced in the winery. They will give you a free tour and wine tasting.

The amazing thing is that the grapes used here, (the Muscadine grapes), are native to North America. Some of the grapes are imported vines that are grafted onto the native American grapes since vines imported from Europe would not survive in the humid and hot climate in Florida.

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A Little Bit of the Physical Geography of Florida

By Dr. Edmar Bernardes DaSilva

Florida is a mostly flat state with some rolling hills in its central region and in its northern region bordering with Georgia. The three physical regions of Florida are: the Atlantic Coastal Plain, the East Gulf Coastal Plain, and the Florida Uplands. The Florida Uplands go from the northwest corner of the state, along the northern edge of the Florida Panhandle and then extend south into the central area of the Florida peninsula. Though the Florida highlands are only 200-300 feet above sea level, they are much higher than the lands of the Atlantic Coastal Plain and the Eastern Gulf Coastal Plain.

The State of Florida is 500 miles (800 km) long and 160 miles (256 km) wide at its most distant points. The state is bordered by Georgia and Alabama to the north. On the west Florida is bordered by Alabama and the Gulf of Mexico. To the south and to the east, Florida is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean. Florida covers 65,758 square miles (105,213 square km), making it the 22nd largest of the 50 states. Florida’s 53,997 (86,395 square km) square miles are land areas, and 11,761 square miles (18,818 square km) of Florida are covered by water making Florida the 3rd wettest state after Alaska and Michigan. Florida’s highest point is Britton Hill, in northwest Florida in the border with Georgia in the Florida Panhandle, and is 345 feet (105 meters) above sea level. The highest point in the peninsular Florida is the Sugar Loaf, which stands 312 feet high (95 meters). Florida’s lowest point is the sea level where Florida meets the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. The average land altitude in Florida is only 100 feet (30.48 meters) above sea level.

Florida’s major rivers: Saint Johns River, Saint Marys River (between Georgia and Northeastern Florida), and Suwannee River (Georgia and Florida).

Florida’s Major Lakes: Lake Okeechobee, and Lake George.

Florida also has a great number of canals.

Florida Central Highlands (A wonder inside Florida)

By Dr. Edmar Bernardes DaSilva

When you are living in South Florida you might think that the entire state of Florida is flat, and with no highlands at all. Well this is not true, because this week I visited with a friend of mine to the Florida Central highlands region, which is a very nice hilly region in Central Florida where lakes and low hills shape the physical landscape in the Lake County region. When I arrived in the region searching for Sugarloaf Mountain, which is the highest point in peninsular state of Florida at 312 feet (95 meters) above the sea, I was surprised to see a highland region inside Florida.

Even though I am a geographer, I always had this preconception that the state of Florida is totally flat and without any kind of hills. I was wrong! So I learned that the highest point in peninsular Florida is located inside Lake County, not far from the city of Clermont. Clermont, by the way, is a charming, small town surrounded by lakes of different sizes (e.g. Lake Apopka). Britton Hill, in the Florida Panhandle, is the highest point in the entire state at 345 feet above sea level. That is not very high either!!!! The state of Florida should add a course on the Geography of Florida to the school curriculum (high school and junior college). Florida is a state with a great and interesting geography which most Floridians know very little of it.

What We Can do to Slow Down GLOBAL WARMING?

By Dr. Edmar Bernardes DaSilva

Humanity can take action to slow global warming. As researchers have showing global warming results primarily from human activities that release heat-trapping gases and particles into the air. The most important causes include the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, gas, and oil, and deforestation. To reduce the emission of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxides, we can curb our consumption of fossil fuels, use technologies that reduce the amount of emissions wherever possible, and protect the world’s forests and keep the world crop production stable.
We can also do things to mitigate the impacts of global warming and adapt to those most likely to occur, through careful long-term planning and other strategies that reduce our vulnerability to global warming. The IPCC Special Report on Emission Scenarios determines the range of future possible greenhouse gas concentrations (and other forces) based on considerations such as population growth, economic growth, energy efficiency and a host of other factors. This leads a wide range of possible forcing scenarios, and consequently a wide range of possible future climates. Precipitation is also expected to increase over the 21st century, particularly at northern mid-high latitudes, though the trends may be more variable in the tropics. Snow extent and sea-ice are also projected to decrease further in the northern hemisphere, and glaciers and ice-caps are expected to continue to retreat.

Countries I Visited and Some of Them I Lived In

Countries I Visited and Some of Them I Lived In.

The Mighty Amazon River (The River of Brazil)

By Dr. Edmar Bernardes DaSilva

The mighty Amazon River is 6280km long. The river starts in Peru as very small stream. It becomes gigantic inside Brazil (where most of it is located) and the mouth and Delta of the Amazon River is located in Northern Brazil (Pará state).


The Amazon River is the world's second longest river. Only the Nile River, in Africa, is longer. Of all rivers in the world, the Amazon River is the most imposing. In fact, the amount of water the Amazon River carries out to sea is estimated at 20% of all the freshwater that is discharged into the oceans.


The Amazon is not the longest, but it is the widest of them all. The Amazon River collects water from over 40% of South America's Landmass, through the thousands of tributaries that join the main branch of the Amazon River.

Global Warming

By Dr. Edmar Bernardes DaSilva

Global warming is a threat to humanity and the planet Earth and people who understand weather and climate, biogeography, environmental science and physical geography know more about this than anyone else. Global warming is out there and people can feel it already in the climate change, shift of natural landscapes and also in the shifting of crop production around the world. Climate change is knocking at our door. Is the globe getting hotter? Is deforestation speeding up global warming, diminishing crop production and speeding the lost of species?

How Geography Sees Tourism

By Dr. Edmar Bernardes DaSilva

Geography sees tourism differently from traditional businesses working in the travel industry. The approach of traditional business to tourism is about making profit and being well organized to earn the most profit as possible.On the other hand, TOURISM GEOGRAPHY, studies the tourism phenomenon on both: the geographic location where tourism is practiced, and also leading a close link of touristy experience with the geographical natural and cultural landscapes present at the touristy destination. Geography’s study of tourism in reality starts focusing on the input of natural and cultural landscapes (or elements) that the geographic background of a tourist destination is made up of. After all the mentioned above is done questions like the ones below are asked:

- How will tourists in reality experience the physical (natural) and cultural (men-made) imprints of the geographical destination?

- What mental maps of the culural and physical landscapes might the tourist have internalized (pictures and anticipations) that will fill their minds with the natural and cultural elements of the tourist destination?

- What arrangement and visual representations will successfully permit the traveler to extensively enjoy and remember the tourist destination’s exclusive natural and cultural geographies.

The tourism geography method gives us a good example of the relevance of human geography in the field of geography. When a student specializes in tourism geography (with a concentration), this student will be prepared to be a tourism geography specialist.

Tourism Geography Major’s Specific Objectives:

- Students who finished their concentration on TOURISM GEOGRAPHY must have an excellent understanding of geography (cartographic, physical and human). The TOURISM GEOGRAPHY majors need to learn not only basic geographical locations, but also have a deep understanding of the connections between humans and the physical environment where they live in.

- TOURISM GEOGRAPHY majors must graduate with a profound understanding of the philosophy, behavioral characteristics, impacts (e.g. economic impacts), capacity (e.g. carrying capacity), sectors, innovations, technological advances, tourism growth projections, and historical background of the tourism process (could be local, regional and at national levels). Learn how tourism effects and is effected by the human geography of a region, and also how tourism effects and is effected by the physical geography of a region.

- All students when finished completing TOURISM GEOGRAPHY must have a solid understanding of the significance and prospects of what is to be a TOURISM PROFESSIONAL, and have the ability to understand the PRATICE OF PROFESSIONAL ETHICS. They must have a good to excellent ability in creative oral and written communication, and finally have a great knowledge of how to be a presenter (e.g. at a conference).

Social Sciences and Geography

By Dr. Edmar Bernardes DaSilva

The social sciences are a bunch of academic disciplines, which concerns the human aspects of the world and their connection with this same world. They are different from the arts and humanities because social sciences tend to emphasize the use of the scientific method when studying humanity, and when doing that they include quantitative and qualitative methods of study.
They refer to social sciences as SOFT SCIENCES because those sciences study the subjective, inter-subjective and objective structural aspects of society, whereas the natural sciences are referred to as HARD SCIENCES, which focus mostly on the objective aspects of nature.
This excepts geography, for example, in which one finds that this subject (geography) has very strong sides of both SOFT and HARD sciences. Geography can be considered a double identity discipline, which holds to both sides of the scientific world: human and natural. Before today the distinction among the hard and soft sciences was fuzzy, though nowadays some social science sub-fields have become very quantitative in their methodology. Examples of boundary subjects between soft and hard sciences are disciplines such as geography, sociology, history, sociobiology, bio-economics and the sociology of science (e.g. Thomas Kuhn). More and more quantitative and qualitative methods are being integrated in the study of human action and its implications and consequences (e.g. geography).

Social Sciences Disciplines:
Anthropology
Geography
History
Economics
Education
Law
Linguistics
Political Science
PsychologySociology...