1. What is a "continent"? How are regions similar or different from a continent?
2. What are the two (2) dominant perspectives about the geography of the world?

 

Question 1

A continent is a large land body or mass separated from other landmasses by large water bodies, for example, an ocean or sea. Contrarily, geologists consider a continent as a large rock mass characterized by how it came to solidify to form land. This definition clarifies why water bodies do not completely separate continents such as Europe and Asia. Saul (20180 indicates that the names of continents as currently known by size from smallest to biggest are Australia, Europe, Antarctica, South America, North America, Africa, and Asia. When identifying continents, geographers include all islands into the associated continent. For example, Japan is an island but is part of the Asian Continent. Also, all islands in the Caribbean, including Greenland, are considered part of North America. Therefore, continents are not defined by their coastlines but by their continental shelves. Lastly, continents are culturally distinct land bodies (Saul, 2018). For example, the Asian and European continents are typically part of an enormous land body called Eurasia. 

Question 2

Geographers rely on spatial and ecological perspectives to frame and understand the world in terms of people and places (Chaudhuri, 2020). However, the field of geography includes other constituent perspectives to communicate world understanding. The spatial perspective is concerned with where things happen, while the ecological perspective is about how life forms interact with the physical surrounding. The two prevalent views provide an explicit understanding of the world as the home of people and all that reside in it. Overly, Chaudhuri (2020) indicates that perspectives are modeled frameworks used by geographers to interpret and understand various meanings of events, experiences, persons, places, physical environments, and cultures. The spatial and ecological perspectives imply that geographers can frame out selective information to give a subjective evaluation of events by looking at the world through "a lens" shaped by human experiences.