Okay, now for some practicalities. What do geographers actually do? Well, we collect data to begin with. You'll be doing a lot of that on your first field trip. How do we do this? There are several means. We might, for example, conduct a census, count a population in a given area perhaps. We also need images of the earth's surface which we can produce by means of computer-generation technology or with the help of satellite relays. We've come a very long way from the early exploration of the world by sailing ships when geographers only had pens and paper at their disposal. After we've gathered our information, we must analyse it. We need to look for patterns, most commonly those of causes and consequences. This kind of information helps us to predict and resolve problems that could affect the world we live in. But we don't keep all this information confidential. We then need to publish our findings so that other people can access it and be informed by it. And one way in which this information can be published is in the form of maps.