World Geography—Semester B

Sample Lesson - Introduction

Lesson 13.07: New Zealand

Yes, it's the home of Middle Earth; no, hobbits don't actually live there.
(Source)

Welcome to Middle Earth, home of hobbits, elves, dwarves, and Smaug the Magnificent.

Sorry, did we say Middle Earth? We meant New Zealand, the woodsy, whimsical spot where it was filmed. And while the connections between the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit and New Zealand might seem like a little bit of a joke, the whole thing is serious business. The movie franchises have had an impact on New Zealand tourism, and a whole industry has sprung up around digital visual effects in "Wellywood"—the New Zealand equivalent to Hollywood.

Plus, the movies have been a showcase for New Zealand's unbelievable physical geography. It's almost like Tolkien wrote the stories with New Zealand in mind. Peter Jackson's whole production empire is based in New Zealand because of physical geography—the landscape was there, and he set up shop around it.

And today, tourists can go and actually visit a real live hobbit hole—in New Zealand.

Sample Lesson - Reading

Reading 13.13.07: Home of Middle Earth

New Zealand is an incredible place. It's so far away from everything else—it's even more remote than Australia, and that's saying something. Like, it's more down under than the Land Down Under.

These days, New Zealand is most famous as the filming location for The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Both movie franchises are celebrated, and New Zealand is known as the Home of Middle Earth.

Preciousss…

Let's introduce ourselves to New Zealand through the eyes of the cast as they were filming The Hobbit. Watch the video here, and pay particular attention to stuff like:

• Geographical features and location selection
• Physical processes that shaped the various settings for the movie
• The words used to describe New Zealand's landscape: spectacular, beautiful, unbelievable, glorious, astonishing, gorgeous, alive, the real thing, too perfect

Shmoop's not jealous or anything, though—those words are used to describe us, like, all the time.

Two Cultures, Two Islands

Geographically, New Zealand is split into two main islands: the North Island and the South Island. Most of the people live on the North Island, and that's where the two biggest cities are, too (Auckland and Wellington). The South Island is a bit more wild and a lot less populated.

(Source)

We're going to do some more serious exploring in the activity today, but for now, these are some of New Zealand's geographic highlights:

• Terrain: Mountainous, with a varied landscape carved by glaciers and diverse physical processes
• Agriculture: Fertile (which is good for agriculture and livestock)
• Government: Parliamentary democracy (modeled on the British system—they colonized this place too)
• The People: Citizens are known as Kiwis, and city names show the British influence (Canterbury, Wellington). The indigenous population is the Maori, and they make up about fifteen percent of the total population
• Moneymakin': Main trading partner used to be the UK, but that changed in the 1970s—now Australia, China, Japan, and the US are the main export destinations.The main exports are agricultural (milk, butter, cheese, sheep and goat meat, fruit, wool, etc.) Tourism is also important to the economy (second biggest, behind dairy), and the film industry is small but world-leading.
• Other Important Facts: New Zealand is anti-nuclear (including both power and weapons) and has lots of renewable energy in hydropower especially. Finally, more and more immigrants are coming from Asia and the Pacific Islands (rather than from the UK, like they used to). Diverse and environmentally friendly? Sounds good to Shmoop.

Let's go back to one of those—the people. The Maori came to New Zealand sometime in the 1200s CE, all the way from Taiwan via the South Pacific islands…probably. The Europeans didn't arrive until the 1800s (and didn't even know it was there until the mid-1600s).

The Maori culture is celebrated in New Zealand, and has become a distinctive part of New Zealand's overall culture (remember the Haka before rugby games?). At the same time, the Maori face many of the same issues as underrepresented populations in other parts of the world, including historic land and treaty issues. Also, they're worse off than the non-indigenous population across many social indicators, like higher rates of imprisonment and unemployment, lower life expectancy, and lower household income.

But there are also ways in which the Maori have more equal rights in New Zealand, compared to other aboriginal populations around the world:

• Maori language is taught in school (plus there's Maori TV and radio).
• Maori place names have been restored.
• There's a Maori political party, with reserved seats in parliament.
• Maori iconography is part of New Zealand's culture.

Peter Jackson and the New Zealand Economy

New Zealand's economy is built around agricultural exports. The UK used to be the major trading partner, but then it joined the EU and New Zealand had to find someone else to dance with. So, they did the smart thing and looked around the region. Nowadays most of New Zealand's trade is with places like Australia, China, Japan, and the US (a bit further away).

But let's talk about something a little more exciting—to Shmoop, at least: the movies. New Zealander Peter Jackson has become well known all over the world for his work on many major movies. The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit movies were filmed on location in New Zealand, and, more significantly, many of the digital effects were produced at Peter Jackson's studios near Wellington (at the southern end of the North Island).

It's hard to say whether Peter Jackson, all on his own, has made a significant contribution to New Zealand's GDP—probably a small one at best. But the impacts of the Wellywood movie industry echo all over the country:

• People immigrate from all over to work in Wellywood, especially in digital visual effects
• The tourism industry actively promotes locations and settings from Jackson's movies
• It supports thousands of small business (mostly involved in production and post-production), bringing in revenue from North American productions
• It's even in airline safety videos

Sample Lesson - Activity

Activity 13.07: Journey Through Middle Earth

So, it's pretty clear that The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogies are pretty important to New Zealand. The landscapes in the movies have been described as "unbelievable." But one thing we know from our understanding of physical geography is that even the most unbelievable landforms have a physical explanation—we can make them believable.

In this activity, we're going to tour around some of the major settings for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogies and explain the physical processes that shaped them. Then we're going to relate all that to New Zealand's economy—tourism and Wellywood.

Before we start, open up this page—it looks like a flight through Middle Earth, but it's actually a flight through New Zealand. We'll be clicking our way through this as we complete the activity. Some things to note:

• It's built on the Middle Earth narratives, but describes the actual geography of New Zealand.
• As you work through the activity, click on the "More Info" link at each location to learn more about physical processes shaping each location.

That's enough prep work. Now for the instructions. You might have seen it coming, but your task is to create an annotated map of ten locations from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogies. Include the following:

• One annotation for each location, describing the physical processes shaping the environment (ten to twenty words each)
• Write one analysis of the connections between the movie industry, New Zealand's economy (including tourism and Wellywood), and physical geography. Do this as a text-box at the bottom of the map (ninety to one hundred words).

Go to the map here and select the ten locations from the "Destinations" pull-down menu or the links below.

The ten locations (links take you to the same place as "More Info" from the flight):

• Northland and Bay of Islands
• Rotorua 
• Waitomo Caves 
• Mount Ruapehu 
• Punakaiki 
• Kaikoura 
• West Coast Glaciers 
• Aoraki Mackenzie Dark Sky Reserve 
• Central Otago 
• Fiordland