Lecture notes on changing speech and culture relations in Southwest Virginia. Historical overview of Southern Appalachian Speech practices with a Virginia emphasis.

Introuction to physical and human geography of Southwest Virginia, highlighting places visited by AP Human Geography teachers. Coal mining is highlighed, focusing on resource extraction techniques, impacts on the environment and possible solutions.

Broadly this lesson examines how natural resources shape the economic, social, political, and environmental features of Southwest Virginia. Students should be able to recognize economic and natural resources in the region. In turn, they can evaluate the affect of these resources on economic, social, political, and environmental development. This helps students understand alternative perspectives and further their own sense of place, so that they can work to solve problems and develop positive outcomes for other groups of people.

Summary of three-day event in which teachers participated in classroom instruction and field experiences that focused on regional cultural identity, folk cultures, language and dialects, economic development, mining and resource extraction, environmental determinism, possibilism, and human development indicators; skills such as formal observation, data collection, landscape analysis, speculation and spatial analysis; and processes such as cultural diffusion, migration, deindustrialization, economic restructuring, and globalization. Many links to resources.

Lecture notes on Southwest Virginia economic and human health. This region has high unemployement and is in transition from an economy centered on coal. There are a number of obstacles including remote location and decline of the coal industry in the United States.