Words: 1494
Keefe Carrillo Professor Jodi Titus Physical Geography 1 Irvine Valley College 11/22/2013 Cal State Fullerton 16th annual Geography Conference I found the Cal State University Fullerton conference to be both intriguing and interesting to attend. At this conference I had the honor of hearing from several different guest speakers and professors from different scholarly institutions. While watching their presentations I found a common factor, everyone shares a passion for Geography.
My expectations of this conference were quite high, when we have people such as these that have a great passion for geography success is made ossible in introducing the material and capturing the audience. The conference consisted of two sessions broken down into eight topics. The first session consists of four topics and five speakers; Dan Walsh, Ray Young, Kevin Erbas-White, Melissa Miller and Anay Palafox. The first speaker Dan Walsh talks about his very own geography and how geography affected his life calling is “The Geography Of Dan”.
There is always a story with a location, experiences are also tied to location and affect who we are. Everyone has a personal geography starting with the geography of our parents influencing our life. Dan Walshs’ parents lived in Hawaii therefore; he has grown to have a particular interest to hawaiis’ geography such as; volcanoes and land. Before Dan Walsh was a geographer Dan was always around national parks due to economic struggles, he grew up in the western part of the United States.
As Dan grew with age he got a Job at Disney Land as fictional character Captain Hook, although Dan worked as a fictional character he always had an interest in road trips. When Dan began college at Cal State Fullerton he grew particular interests and became more inclined to Geography. Dan wanted to work outdoors and decided he would major in Geology, later he would abandon the major for the alternative urban and physical Geography. Dan in efforts of spending more time in the outdoors became a Park Ranger in Massachusetts, again another futile attempt to figuring out what he wanted to do.
It turns out that becoming a Park Ranger was a seasonal Job and not as stable as he believed it was. Dan decided it would be in his best interest to go back to Cal State Fullerton where he later became a Stage Manager directing tinker bell plays. An opportunity was later presented to Dan when colleague informed Dan of something called “The evolution of Disneyland Environments” where he had talents and preferences combined. He began his career in applied Geography as a Demographic Specialist using tools such as G. I.
S and other resources such as a colleague and professor who owned a consulting firm. His second career attempt included push factors and teaching domestic Geography. Dan found that implementing Geography and teaching in a positive manner was his preference. Dan now works as a professor at Saddleback Community College. retail calling it “Discount Chains, Shopping Centers, and Suburban Retail Competition”. Dr Ray Young is a professor at Cal State Fullerton in the Emeritus Department of Geography. Dr Ray starts his auditory speech by pointing out that there is a transformation in retailing.
He factually proves that Amazon and Ebay combined only make up one fifth of retail sales compared to retail stores such as Wal-Mart and Target. He than goes on a rant to prove a valid point with statistics stating that Orange County has more than doubled in the past twenty years on discount chains. The competition is now thinning out; there are only four K-marts in Orange County left. Dr. Ray than talks about location and the acknowledgement of low income and suburban areas in location; For example Dr. Ray said that, Garden Grove isn’t as affluently prospered as Brea.
Low income to high income location play a big role in profit margins for such retail companies. Dr. Ray than stated a personal encounter with a leading competitor Costco, he stated that he saw a long line of cars waiting to fill their cars with gas, again proving that there is in fact profit in the making. Costco makes 1. 8 million in annual revenue which is double of Wal-Marts’ annual revenue. Dr. Ray than says there is an equivalent of twenty five regional malls in Orange County twice the amount of regional malls in the past twenty years.
Next we take a look at local Tustin Market Place and the distinct interesting boundary line separating Irvine and Tustin. We can also now do our banking and grocery shopping with luxury convenience at New Port Beaches’ Fashion Island. He ends his presentation by stating that Wal-Mart is growing and exponentially fast level, soon they will be the only ones in business. The next speaker and student at Cal State Fullerton Kevin White gives a resentation on “Mapping Habitat Niches of the Southern Pacific Rattlesnake (C. o. elleri) and the Red Diamond Rattlesnake (C. ruber) in Southern California. ” There is a high variation of Red Diamond Rattle snakes and Southern Pacific Rattlesnakes in Southern California. Red Diamond rattle snakes favor cacti like habitats, whereas, Southern Pacific is a more widespread favor on oak grassland and riparian habitats. Remote sensing is gathering information about an area including data collection. Approximately sixteen hundred individual habitat points of Red Diamond and Southern Pacific have been found.
New technology offers a better understand of our planet we live in, the new landsat 8 was launched February 11, 2013 consisting of 11 bands, bands 1 -7 and 9 have a 30 meter resolution, thermal I. R bands 10 & 11 have a 100 meter resolution. This new technology offers us the capability of imaging the entire planet Earth in Just a measly 16 days. A completed mosaic is a bunch of images put together to analyze the area of study, this can all be done by data collection with satellite imagery and image acquisition.
Satellite imagery seems to how that the Red Diamond snake prefers drier and less vegetated habitats compared to the Southern Pacific rattlesnake. Lastly our duet speakers Melissa Miller and Anay Palafox talked on their experience in Brazil calling it “Geographers Study Abroad in Brazil”. Melissa and Anay are currently both students at Cal State Fullerton studying Geography. While at their visit in Brazil they visited Rio De Janeiro and the famous “Christ the Redeemer” statue. They also visited Lencois classroom settings, although there are some education Just like student in the U. S and that is very important.
While their visit in Brazil, they took classes in Capoeira, a once restricted martial art in Brazil. This Martial Art expresses the tradition and culture of Brazil in a form of art. While on aboard study these two students teamed up with Dr. Roy Funch which later served them as tour guides in the favelas of Brazil. Dr Roy assisted in the development of national parks in Brazil in an effort to influence the love for Geography. With leisure time the two students decided that going to Sao Joa Festival on June 24 would be a fun experience. They highly recommend people to visit the beach and make new riends.
Melissa and Annay mention the kindness of the Brazilian inhabitants; they are very friendly and kind on approach. The inhabitants of Brazil like to enjoy life and are very outgoing celebrative people. Lastly, the students mentioned that they were surprised by a third world country such as Brazil to have such nice accommodations such as; privacy, nice rooms, a fully functioning shower and toilet as well as a sink, kitchen and living room. The only negative part of their accommodations was cold showers and sharing a room with at least one other gender related guest.
They also specified that there was active riots and political unrest over a controversial construction of a stadium in government efforts of trying to raise more money. Overall these two college students would highly recommend going to Brazil and taking an abroad study course. It was a pleasure to hear from all these fascinating and highly educated scholars. There is definitely a prevalent love for Geography and the advancement of a better understanding of our world. These five speakers talked with such great auditory professionalism, they really captured my attention.
What I liked the most is how in depth the speakers were about their topics. I was not disappointed by the conference at Cal State Fullerton I will definitely be looking forward to attending the next conference. I believe Professor Dan will keep on teaching well and advancing his field of study along with Dr. Ray and his retail suburban study. As for Kevin I believe he will grow in knowledge and interest in rattle snakes. I believe Anay and Melissa will continue their field of study as well abroad or locally these two have a clear interest in culture and diversity.