The increasing interdependency and regional specialization of today's world demand a new approach to the teaching of introductory geography courses. By focusing on the interrelationship of physical, cultural, and economic geography, a course for general education students can foster development of the geographic perspective on human systems needed to understand contemporary world issues. For example, physical geography would be taught in terms of the aspects of the earth's environment that relate to the central problems of human life; cultural geography would emphasize details that affect human lifestyles. Students would leave such a course with a systems view of how and why people live as they do in different places on earth. (LP)