Teaching Across the Divide: Physical and Human Geographies of Hurricane Katrina

Abstract

This article critically reflects on our effort to ‘teach across the divide’, by integrating physical and human geography in a new first-year course. We achieved this integration by structuring our course around a series of key events, in order to draw out the interaction of ‘natural’ and ‘social’ forces. After setting out the intellectual and institutional reasons for integration, we illustrate our approach with reference to one of the key events covered in our course: Hurricane Katrina. Finally, we draw on our own reflections and student evaluations to consider the positive outcomes of our approach, and the challenges it poses.

Keywords:

• Hurricane Katrina
• physical geography
• human geography

Notes

¹ Two helpful sources here were the Brookings Institute (http://www.brook.edu/fp/projects/homeland/katrinatimeline.pdf) and CNN (http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2005/katrina/interactive/timeline.katrina.large/frameset.exclude.html).

² To make this comparison, we compared US Census Bureau maps of 2000 US Census data on household income and race in New Orleans with flood depth maps provided by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (see http://www.katrina.noaa.gov/).

³ As reported by student representatives at the School's Staff–Student Liaison Committee, November 2009.