Example Student Projects from Past Years

On this blog I present student projects from past years for GEOG 2010 (Introduction to Human Geography) and GEOG 4031 (Latin America and the Caribbean) to illustrate some of the range of topics and approaches possible. The examples are presented anonymously, and their inclusion has nothing to do with their quality or the grade they received. Seniors in GEOG 4031 typically, but not always, produce more advanced types of projects than Sophomores in GEOG 2010.  When perusing these example, please think through the issues involved in doing such projects. Similar to a term paper based on library research, you must choose a project based on what you have learned through the readings, lectures, and response paragraphs so far in the course but one that allows you to develop a deeper understanding of a topic that is personally interesting and exciting to you and use it to demonstrate your deepening understanding of some aspects of the course material. Also similar to such a term paper, you ...

Calypso music has long occupied an integral place in the cultural framework of Trinidad and Tobago, and in the 20th century became a major cultural export. This project explores the rise in popularity and the commodification of the traditional Calypso song style, and its musical evolution to Soca, the more contemporary and more globally-popular form. The history of Calypso is long and murky, with its true origins lost to the chaos of colonialism and the African slave trade, and a deep dive is beyond the purview of this project. My aim is to outline a brief history of Calypso and its role as a social tool, and then to explore the expanding international commodification of Calypso and Soca through of the concept of diffusion. There is a deep well of scholarship regarding the geography of music. Using Nash and Carney's (1996) "The Seven Themes of Music Geography" as a framework, I was inspired by the question under investigation from the 1970s onward: "What is 'ma...

Drug trafficking has been around for a long time, but it recently has become a major problem in the forests of Central America. Drug traffickers, or "Los Narcos", are deforesting areas in the Central America region to pave the way for their drug empires. Huge clearings in the middle of nowhere are being noticed and "narco-pistas" (air landing-strips for drug runners) can be spotted in these areas for the mobilization of their product. The landscape is being completely changed due to the drug-trafficking organizations (DTOs) now being present and the deforestation. Honduras and Guatemala are the highest among those that are being deforested due to narco-trafficking. Recent studies have brought proof of the drug-trafficking that is taking a toll on the forests in Central America and new strategies need to be drawn up to alleviate this problem. Los Narcos are deforesting areas in the Central America region to pave the way for their drug empires. Huge clearings in t...

Beyond the class textbook, I used six sources to further my knowledge on Acadiana as a region and to develop conclusions on what defined an Acadian region. The first being The Place with No Edge ( Mandelman 2020), which discusses the role of Cajuns in the Louisiana oil and gas industry and defines their relationship to the environment through their livelihoods. This is important for discussing the role the industry played in bringing Cajuns into a modern Louisiana. In A New Acadia: The Acadian Migrations to South Louisiana  (Brasseaux 1985), I found information on the gradual acceptance of the label "Cajun" within the Acadian community and the factors that defined the name over the years. I used "Acadiana and the Cajun Cultural Landscape" (McKernan 2010) to define the commonly interpreted Acadiana region; this source is also used to see the role of Cajun culture in music, festivals, food, and more. "The Cajunization of French Louisiana: Foraging a Regional Iden...