Chapter 8 Homework

Chapter 8, Section 1

1. How do geographers divide the large region that is known as Latin America?

Answer:
Geographers divide Latin America into the Middle American region, the Caribbean region, and the South America region.
 

2. What natural resources make Latin America an economically important region?

Answer:
Latin America's oil, natural gases, gold, emeralds, and copper make it an economically important region
 

Creative Writing: The people of Latin America benefit greatly from their water systems. Write a paragraph that describes how the people use the region’s rivers.

The people of Latin America use their rivers for transportation and energy.  The rivers are used as waterways to transport goods from one part of Latin America to all across the region.  Some waterways, such as the Panama Canal, provide shortcuts where ships and boats can travel from the Pacific to the Atlantic ocean without having to go down the tip of South America.  Fast moving rivers also supply hydroelectric power which powers most of the cities.

Chapter 8, Section 2

1. Which climate regions are represented in Latin America?

Answer
The climate regions represented in Latin America are the Tropical wet climates, the tropical dry climates, the humid subtropical, the desert, the Mediterranean, the marine west coast, and the highland.
 

2. How do Latin America’s location and landforms affect climates even within particular regions?

Answer

The location of the climate affects the temperature.  Places closer to the equator with have hotter climate, while locations farther from the equator will be colder.  Landforms such as mountains and forests can affect the climates as well.  Mountains can either cause more rainfall in a region, or block the rain from a neighboring climate, resulting in a desert area.  Forests help keep climates cool by shading the sun. Another factor that can affect the climate is wind.  Shifting winds and dry coastal winds mixing results in no rainfall which leads to no vegetation, no water, and a desert.

Creative Writing: Pretend you are on a hiking tour of one of the climate regions of Latin America. In the form of a journal entry, write about the area you are hiking by describing its vegetation and climate

Answer:

Wow, today on our hiking tour we hiked in the puna region.  It was so cold!  I think, at warmest, the temperature was maybe 55 degrees Fahrenheit, a lot colder than I'm used to.  As we hiked on, it got colder.  At one point I asked the tour guide what temperature it was, and she said -65 degrees Fahrenheit!  No wonder I was freezing.  I didn't see any trees in the puna zone, or any shrubs.  The only vegetation was a few, non-varied species of grass.  Although the trip sounds bad, I had a lot of fun.  We got to see cute fluffy sheep grazing around  We even saw a group of llamas hanging out, just there in front of us!  On the way down, I could have sworn I saw another creature which looked much like a llama, but it could have easily been an alpaca.