This course will provide an overview of the AP Human Geography curriculum and help participants design their own course. Participants will review lesson plans, resources, and websites for teaching each of the major course topics, including geography, population, cultural patterns, the political organization of space, rural land use, industrialization, and cities. The course will focus on effective teaching strategies and learning activities to prepare for success on the AP exam. Participants will begin to develop their own course outline, syllabus, and assessment tools.

Course Objectives:

1. to examine the format of the AP Human Geography Exam and learn the skills necessary to pass it
2. to be able to write and score AP Free Response and Document-Based Essays (DBQs)
3. to use various methods of teaching and sources of information in the classroom
4. to acquire some of the factual information needed to teach Human Geography
5. to be able to write and score the new format Free Response Questions

Day 1: AM — Online Discussion of Class Logistics and Changes

• Introductions
• Assignment of two countries and two states per person.
• What are your main concerns about the AP? What did you come here to learn?
• Overview of CED Binder: The AP Program and Human Geography Exam
• New College Board Resources—AP Classroom and the AP Central Website

½ hr break – time to spend time looking at AP Classroom

• Discussion: Problems with AP Classroom
• AP Registration—College Board PowerPoint
• Discussion of Summer Reading–To assign a reading or not: that is the question.
• Some great websites to use

½ hr break – for a look at websites

• Return for Group activity and discussion
• Scheduling and Pacing—A look at syllabi
• The Course Audit

Lunch Break

Day 1: PM — Unit I and II (Maps, Population) — Geographic Skills Focus: Scale and Analyzing Data

• Map, Chart and Graph Skills—Scale Activity
• Using Technology in the classroom– GPS and GIS

½ hr break – GIS Activity or to make up a lesson using a map

• Discuss GIS Activity or share map lessons

Guest Speaker (possible): NASA Scientist Robert E. Wolfe on Satellite Mapping

• Discussion: Population Data and the Demographic Transition Model
• Population Pyramid Activity—Skill: Analyzing Data
• Using Websites: Show TEDtalk of Gapminder—https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/ , gapminder.org, www.census.gov and others

½ hr break – to look at sites and research your two countries’ population statistics

• Discussion of research findings
• Immigration Project—Brainstorm questions for Immigration assignment

Homework:

1. Interview One person using questions generated above
2. write out the Covid-19 FRQ provided by teacher
3. Research your two countries’ population statistic
4. Watch one of the following videos– Living Treasures of Japan and Australia’s Aborigines https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KujoKBGuRsM&t=10s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkC1K629lKM
5. Start planning out your year on your school calendar, adding in activities we have discussed in class

Assignment for Credit Courses (due ten days after the end of class): Students Will Write

and Present a Unit Lesson Plan

Day 2: AM — Unit III (Cultural Geography) — Skill Focus: Analyzing Source Documents

• Go over Covid-19 FRQ
• Migration Discussion: Map Migration Interview Info and Discuss Push and Pull Factors, Obstacles to Migration, and problems of assimilation

½ hr break – Syrian Migration Activity from Choices https://www.choices.edu/teaching-news-lesson/refugee-stories-mapping-crisis/

• Video: Bhutan – The Last Place https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZPKjLtVT04
• Discussion of Folk vs Pop Culture Homework Assignment– Music, Food, Clothing, Sports and more.
• Discussion: Dying Cultures and How to Keep them Alive (Two homework videos)

½ hr break: Find examples of folk and pop culture in your home. Photograph them to show the group.

• Discussion of photos and findings. (Skill: Data Analysis)
• A look back at the CED! Language and Religion—How much do they need to know?
• Religious and Ethnic Conflict: a good topic for a paper

Lunch Break

Day 2: PM

• Discussion: Ethnicity and Race—two topics guaranteed to make people mad
• Gendered Spaces Activity (Skills: Patterns and Scale)

½ hr break – Pacing and Sequencing: Spend time working on your calendar for the school year. Add activities we have done to your calendar.

Guest Speaker (possible): Dr. Catherine Allen, anthropologist from GWU on the Quechua of Peru

Homework:

1. Write the Free Response Essay Question (to be handed out in class.)
2. Watch How the States Got Their Shapes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTYB_4MJpOk
3. How many Human Geography issues do you find in it? How could you use this in class? Look online at other titles available in this series.
4. Start planning out your year on your school calendar, adding in activities we have discussed in class

Day 3: AM — Unit IV (Political Geography) — Skill: Analyzing Processes

• Discussion of FRQ scoring from homework assignment
• Discussion: Definitions of Nations, States and Nation States
• Discussion: Types of Governmental Organization- Unitary and Federal
• Borders Discussion of video homework

¼ hr break

• Discussion: Supernational and Supranational Organizations
• Discussion: Centrifugal and Centripetal Forces

½ hr break – Write a timed FRQ

• Practice scoring student samples of FRQ

Lunch Break

Day 3: PM — Unit V (Agriculture)

• Discussion: Historical Hearths and Climate Zones

¼ hr break – Quick Research and Mini-Poster Presentation on Types of Agriculture—What is it? Where is it found? Why is it important?

• Agricultural Model— Von Thunen Concentric Zone Group Activity
• Discussion: New Agricultural Trends—Green Revolutions and Organic Farming

½ hr break – Groups watch two videos each

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEkc70ztOrc and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVrIyEu6h_E OR
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDOtDhYnHSY and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oZAl2V3Jy0

• Problems of Commercial Farming—Discussion of Videos
• News Articles and Newspaper Games—teacher handouts
• Using Current Events in the classroom– Journal Exercises
• Assignment of States for Project Homework

Homework:

1. Write a free response essay –Teacher handout
2. Write a journal entry on article assigned
3. Watch Don’t Panic End Poverty on gapminder.org
4. Start planning out your year on your school calendar, adding in activities we have   discussed in class

Day 4/5: AM — Unit VI (Urban Geography) — Skill: Synthesizing Information

• Discussion of Homework Essay—Scoring practice
• Services and Service Patterns—Christaller’s Model
• Discussion of Journal Entries
• Discussion/Presentation of State Projects
• Prezi of all models https://prezi.com/quigwfyvfnoy/ap-human-geography-models-and-theories/
• Discussion of Urbanization Models

½ hr break – Make a Model out of Something in your house

• Presentation of Models
• Discussion of Urban Problems—Ghettoization and Gentrification, Brownfields and Social Injustice
• Transportation: Metro Map Activity

½ hr break: Look at the CED for this unit and quickly design an Urban Lesson Plan for one topic

• Presentations of Lesson Plans

Lunch

Day 4/5: PM – Unit VII (Development and Economic Geography)

• Gapminder Dollar Street Discussion — Less Developed Countries and More Developed Countries
• Discussion of Rostow’s and Wallerstein’s Models

½ hr break: Write your own FRQ to share with the group

• How to Sum It All Up
• Discussion of Don’t Panic, End Poverty
• Video- Planet Money Makes a Tee Shirt
• Supermarket Scavenger Hunt, Mall Projects, etc.

Final Assignment—Construct a Unit of Lesson Plans– one weeks-worth or more,

ending with an assessment (test, essay, project, etc.) — to be used with your class next

year, using the ideas/techniques discussed during the week. (Finished Lesson plan and

assessment you would use with your students should be e-mailed to Instructor by ________

at pkwolfe1435@gmail.com.)

A teacher and department head at the Yeshiva of Greater Washington in Silver Spring, MD since 1980, Pamela Wolfe is now Humanities Division Head. She has been teaching AP European History for 31 years and has taught the AP Human Geography course since its inception in 2001. She served as an AP Reader for European History for 15 years and as a Table Leader for 6 years. She was on the AP Test Development Committee which writes the AP European History exams. She runs College Board programs in AP European History and AP Human Geography and teaches AP Summer Institutes for teachers in both subjects at schools such as Manhattan College, Goucher College, Rutgers University, University of South Florida, the College of William and Mary, and Penn State University. She has served as a consultant for textbook companies, reviewing and writing texts and online programs for AP students. She is co-author of Fast Track to a Five European History and is one of the AP authors for the Spielvogel Western Civilization textbook. She is currently working on a Teachers’ Manual and AP style test questions for the Bjelland Human Geography textbook.