Earth Science in your Last Term

Eleven weeks is a good chunk of time, enough to wrap up everything graduation (a lot more things than I had actually thought there would be) and take time to enjoy hanging out with friends before the big move. Throw Earth Science into the mix and eleven weeks seems rather grueling. Why I took that class my last term…basically because I wanted to graduate and needed three science credits. Every Wednesday at 8am I was sitting in room 264 half asleep listening to a four-hour lecture about all things Earth. I was dying for something interesting to grasp onto to make my time there worthwhile.
At about week six I finally learned something that made the whole class ok. Maybe it isn’t as revolutionary an idea as it seemed to me, but the United States has 70% of the worlds best soils for producing agriculture, which is unmatched by any other country. Perhaps this could be a very large contributing factor to the success the United States has had orchestrating power on the world stage.
Then it was week eight. Another interesting fact, maybe this class wasn’t so bad after all. The areas of the United States that have 70% of the worlds best soils (the Midwest) has a waterway system (the Mississippi River) that makes transportation of goods in and out of this area extremely easy and cost effective in comparison. Another considerable factor for why the United States has had success on the world stage.
Perhaps this dynamic between good agricultural soil, cheap/effective forms of transportation and power of a country should be examined in greater detail. A study of that nature could reveal a lot about political relationships between countries.