OA - Oceania and Antarctica Module Overview

Oceania and Antarctica

Introduction

Photograph of Antarctica - View of the Riiser-Larsen Ice ShelfThe immense tropical Pacific realm and the ice-covered continent of Antarctica have almost opposing physical characteristics, but they are similar in that they are remote and isolated from the rest of the world. Understanding the geographic qualities of these two areas will help in comprehending the unique traits that humans have developed to survive in diverse environments. Both places include large physical areas with vast open spaces between human settlements.

 

Essential Questions

  • How does physical geography influence human settlement?
  • How has culture influenced the development or formation of countries?

 

Key Terms

  • Aboriginal people - first or native groups of people.
  • Antarctic Circumpolar Current - a cold water current, which is also called the West Wind Drift. It circles around Antarctica in a clockwise, west to east, flowing pattern.
  • Archipelago - is a chain or collection of islands.  
  • Assimilation - the process by which new ideas and experiences or actions are absorbed and incorporated into a person or group's accepted beliefs and behaviors.
  • ASEAN - an association of nations dedicated to economic and political cooperation in southeastern Asia and who joined with the United States to fight against global terrorism.
  • Atolls - a ring-shaped reef, island, or chain of islands formed of coral.
  • Bikini Atoll - the isolated reef, located in the Marshall Islands of the central Pacific, that was the site of U.S. nuclear bomb tests, consequently contaminating the atoll with high levels of radiation and driving its inhabitants away.
  • Continental island - islands or isles are typically any piece of sub-continental land. Australia is a continent and an island. This makes it a continental island.
  • Crevasse - a deep open crack, especially one in a glacier
  • Great Barrier Reef - a 1,250-mile chain of more than 2,500 reefs and islands along Australia's northeast coast, containing some 400 species of coral.
  • High island - also called a volcanic island, is an island of volcanic origin.
  • Ice shelf - a thick floating platform of ice that forms where a glacier flows out onto an ocean surface.
  • Infrastructure - the physical buildings, roads, and utilities of a country.
  • Low island - Pacific islands formed from sedimentation or the uplifting of coral reefs. These islands often develop off sunken volcanoes.
  • Maori - a member of a Polynesian group that settled New Zealand about 800 C.E.
  • Melanesia - a Pacific Ocean region that includes peoples of New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, and Fiji.
  • Micronesia - a Pacific Ocean region that includes the Mariana Islands, Marshall Islands, and Federated States of Micronesia.
  • Oceania - a large group of islands in the south Pacific including Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia (and sometimes Australasia and the Malay Archipelago).
  • Outback - the dry, unpopulated inland region of Australia.
  • Penal Colony - an institution where prisoners are exiled (often located on an island from which escape is difficult or impossible).
  • Polynesia - Islands contained in a rough triangle whose points lie in Hawaii, New Zealand, and Easter Island.
  • Southern Ocean - an ocean located below the 60° south latitude that surrounds Antarctica.
  • Stolen Generation - in Australia, what Aboriginal people today call the 100,000 mixed-race children who were taken by the government and given to white families to promote assimilation.
  • Subsistence Activities - activities in which a family produces only the food, clothing, and shelter they themselves need.
  • Urbanization - the process by which cities grow.

 

RESOURCES IN THIS MODULE ARE OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES (OER) OR CREATED BY GAVS UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED. SOME IMAGES USED UNDER SUBSCRIPTION.