Course Syllabus

AP Human Geography

Course Syllabus & Outline

 

Mr. Mather

Donald.mather@ucps.k12.nc.us

Parkwood High School

 

 

 

1. Introduction to the Course:

Welcome to AP Human Geography! You have chosen an opportunity to take this advanced College-level course. The course will prepare and challenge you about the multiple aspects, issues, and problems of the physical and human geography of our world. The AP Course is structured according to the course outline found in the most recent AP Human Geography outline published by the College Board. Take this course only if you are interested in advanced studies in social studies. Upon completion of the College Board exam, students have the potential opportunity to earn credit in their college they attend. This varies by college, degree, and year.

 

There are 7 major units of study. This course is a yearlong course that focuses on the historical and modern distributions, processes, and effects of human populations. Units of Study include:

• Foundations of Human Geography
• Population and Migration
• Cultural Patterns & Processes: Folk & Popular Culture, Language, Ethnicity, & Religion
• Political Organization of Space
• Agriculture, Food Production and Rural Land Use
• Industrialization and Development
• Urban Patterns

Emphasis is placed on the critical use of multiple perspectives in geographic issues, theories & models, hands-on application, sketch mapping & analysis of case studies. These regional case studies are compared to situations in the U.S. and local issues. It is suggested to be up to date on current issues

 

1. Materials, Texts, and AP Exam:

 

Rubenstein, James M. The Cultural Landscape: and Introduction to Human Geography. 11th ed. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall Pearson Education, Inc., 2014

 

There will be additional readings throughout the course taken from sources such as The Economist, PBS, National Geographic, BBC News, and more. These Readings are mandatory and should be completed on time. Students may be pre-quizzed on readings prior to the lessons. Additional case studies, readings from newspapers from around the world, films, online video clips, aerial and satellite photographs, and field study work will supplement the Course Textbook.

 

Other Materials: You will be responsible for your organization. You lose something, too bad, so sad. Do NOT put any papers in your textbook! Important Note – You must bring your textbooks, assignments, & required materials everyday (pending further notice). You may NOT leave the classroom to get any missed assignments or materials. Be prepared at all times!

Materials for course:

 

• 1-inch 3 ring binder- This should be divided into 3 sections:
  • A section for class notes and handouts
  • A section for essays and writing tips
  • A section for Reading Log Handouts
• A pocket folder used to turn in reading logs
• Loose leaf paper
• A Highlighter
• Pencils
• Pens (blue/black ink only)
• Index cards

 

Absences:

We will follow the PHS and Union County policies in regards to absences.  In our classroom, you are responsible for the work you have missed due to an absence.  Plan to turn in all work that was due on the day missed at the time you return and prepare to ask the teacher for the work that was missed.  You will be given two days to turn in the work from the day(s) you were absent.  It is your responsibility to get your make up work to and from Mr. Mather.

Grading and Late work:

This course will be graded similarly to a college course.  You will be tested in the same format as the AP test you will take in May.  This will enhance your chance of doing well on that test and prepare you for the style of testing seen in a college course. You will also complete a variety of group and individual assignments including artistic projects, writing assignments, reading logs (discussed below), maps and worksheets.  Late work will be accepted one day late for 50%.  After that it will not be accepted.

Grading Percentages:

Tests (multiple choice, short answer and essay): 40%

Quizzes/Essays: 20%

Participation/Classwork/Homework-Reading Log: 40%

Grades will consist of Long Essays, D.B.Q.'s, quizzes, tests, homework (reading assignments), and classwork (maps, seminars, projects, etc.). In addition, you will have a mid-year exam, the AP Exam in May and a final exam at the end of the school year.

Reading Logs:

Reading and comprehending the textbook is vital to success in this course.  We will not cover everything in class, so it is critical to complete the reading logs.  Students will be given a 5-6 page handout for each chapter we cover.  These should be completed and kept in a separate section of your 3 ring binder.  You should also have a folder that you will use to turn them in at the end of each unit.

Reading Logs will be checked for completion regularly throughout each unit.  Students will be given a schedule at the beginning of each unit for when they will be checked.  Reading logs will be turned on test day where they will be graded for correctness.  Reading Logs will not be accepted late!

Homework:

Homework will be assigned every night in AP U.S. History.  Assignments will always include the reading log, which involves reading and note-taking.  Additional assignments will include essay writing, research, and discussion questions.  Homework MUST be turned in on the assigned due date, at the beginning of the class period, in order to receive credit.

 

Quizzes:

Quizzes will be both announced and unannounced. Students must be prepared daily for a possible quiz on material covered in class as well as that assigned for homework the night before.  Some writing assignments also hold the value of quiz grades rather than homework grades.  Quizzes will count as approximately 20% of the semester grade.

Testing:

Students will take objective exams covering material from the textbook, supplemental readings, discussions, and lectures.  Most tests will consist of a 60-80 question multiple choice section and a short answer section.

 

 

The AP Exam: Tuesday May 5th, 2020 at 12 noon

 

Course Calendar and Outline

 

The Following is a Course Breakdown of the Units that will be covered and the amount of time spent on them. Dates are subject to change. This is tentative. Additional Readings will be assigned.

 

Topic	Multiple-Choice Coverage on the AP Exam	Time (appx)	Textbook Readings (Additional Reading assignments will be given)
I. Intro to Human Geography:  Foundations, Development, Urban Patterns, Map Skills, & Writing Skills	5 - 10%	10 days	Rubenstein Ch. 1
II. Population & Migration	13 - 17%	10 days	Rubenstein Chs. 2 and 3
III. Urban Patterns and Resources	13 - 17%	10 days	Rubenstein Ch. 13
IV. Agriculture, Food Production, Rural Land Use, & Resources	13 - 17%	10 days	Rubenstein Ch. 10
V. Industry, Economic Geography, & Development	13 - 17%	10 days	Rubenstein Chs. 9, 11, 12
VI. Political Organization of Space; Geo-Politics	13 - 17%	10 days	Rubenstein Chs. 7 and 8
VII. Cultural Geography: Patterns & Processes	13 - 17%	10 days	Rubenstein Chs. 4, 5, and 6
VIII. Course Overview and AP Exam Review	All	5 days	ALL + Review

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AP Units of Study & Course Outline:

 

The main Geographic Regions of the world will be discussed and analyzed throughout the course. Each unit is vital to the understanding of every other unit. Case Studies and appropriate readings, articles, videos, assessments, and activities will be used to enrich the understanding and challenges of each unit. The use of multiple biases and perspectives will be covered throughout the course. Items and Assignments may change. Changes to the course will and may occur. It is the student’s responsibility to check and be aware of any due dates and assignment changes. Below is a sample of some items covered in the AP Human Geography as well as projects. This is NOT exhaustive list and this is subject to changes.

 

1. Geography: Its Nature and Perspectives 5–10%
2. Geography as a field of inquiry
3. Major geographical concepts underlying the geographical perspective:

location, space, place, scale, pattern, nature and society, regionalization,

globalization, and gender issues

1. Key geographical skills
2. How to use and think about maps and geospatial data
3. How to understand and interpret the implications of associations among

phenomena in places

3. How to recognize and interpret at different scales the relationships

among patterns and processes

4. How to define regions and evaluate the regionalization process
5. How to characterize and analyze changing interconnections among places
6. Use of geospatial technologies, such as GIS, remote sensing, global

positioning systems (GPS), and online maps

1. Sources of geographical information and ideas: the field, census data,

online data, aerial photography, and satellite imagery

1. Identification of major world regions (see maps on the front page)

 

1. Population and Migration . 13–17%
2. Geographical analysis of population
3. Density, distribution, and scale
4. Implications of various densities and distributions
5. Composition: age, sex, income, education, and ethnicity
6. Patterns of fertility, mortality, and health
7. Population growth and decline over time and space
8. Historical trends and projections for the future
9. Theories of population growth and decline, including the Demographic

Transition Model

3. Regional variations of demographic transition
4. Effects of national population policies: promoting population growth in

some countries or reducing fertility rates in others

5. Environmental impacts of population change on water use, food supplies,

biodiversity, the atmosphere, and climate

6. Population and natural hazards: impacts on policy, economy, and society
7. Migration
8. Types of migration: transnational, internal, chain, step, seasonal

agriculture (e.g., transhumance), and rural to urban

2. Major historical migrations
3. Push and pull factors, and migration in relation to employment and

quality of life

4. Refugees, asylum seekers, and internally displaced persons
5. Consequences of migration: socioeconomic, cultural, environmental, and

political; immigration policies; remittances

 

III.            Cultural Patterns and Processes 13–17%

1. Concepts of culture
2. Culture traits
3. Diffusion patterns
4. Acculturation, assimilation, and multiculturalism
5. Cultural region, vernacular regions, and culture hearths
6. Globalization and the effects of technology on cultures
7. Cultural differences and regional patterns
8. Language and communications
9. Religion and sacred space
10. Ethnicity and nationalism
11. Cultural differences in attitudes toward gender
12. Popular and folk culture
13. Cultural conflicts, and law and policy to protect culture
14. Cultural landscapes and cultural identity
15. Symbolic landscapes and sense of place
16. The formation of identity and place making
17. Differences in cultural attitudes and practices toward the environment
18. Indigenous peoples

 

1. Political Organization of Space . 13–17%
2. Territorial dimensions of politics
3. The concepts of political power and territoriality
4. The nature, meaning, and function of boundaries
5. Influences of boundaries on identity, interaction, and exchange
6. Federal and unitary states, confederations, centralized government, and forms of governance
7. Spatial relationships between political systems and patterns of ethnicity, economy, and gender
8. Political ecology: impacts of law and policy on the environment and environmental justice
9. Evolution of the contemporary political pattern
10. The nation-state concept
11. Colonialism and imperialism
12. Democratization
13. Fall of communism and legacy of the Cold War
14. Patterns of local, regional, and metropolitan governance
15. Changes and challenges to political-territorial arrangements
16. Changing nature of sovereignty
17. Fragmentation, unification, and cooperation
18. Supranationalism and international alliances
19. Devolution of countries: centripetal and centrifugal forces
20. Electoral geography: redistricting and gerrymandering
21. Armed conflicts, war, and terrorism

 

1. Agriculture, Food Production, and Rural Land Use 13–17%
2. Development and diffusion of agriculture
3. Neolithic Agricultural Revolution
4. Second Agricultural Revolution
5. Green Revolution
6. Large-scale commercial agriculture and agribusiness
7. Major agricultural production regions
8. Agricultural systems associated with major bioclimatic zones
9. Variations within major zones and effects of markets
10. Interdependence among regions of food production and consumption
11. Rural land use and settlement patterns
12. Models of agricultural land use, including von Thünen’s model
13. Settlement patterns associated with major agriculture types: subsistence, cash cropping, plantation, mixed farming, monoculture, pastoralism, ranching, forestry, fishing and aquaculture
14. Land use/land cover change: irrigation, desertification, deforestation, wetland destruction, conservation efforts to protect or restore natural land cover, and global impacts
15. Roles of women in agricultural production and farming communities
16. Issues in contemporary commercial agriculture
17. Biotechnology, including genetically modified organisms (GMO)
18. Spatial organization of industrial agriculture, including the transition

in land use to large-scale commercial farming and factors affecting the location of processing facilities

3. Environmental issues: soil degradation, overgrazing, river and aquifer depletion, animal wastes, and extensive fertilizer and pesticide use
4. Organic farming, crop rotation, value-added specialty foods, regional appellations, fair trade, and eat-local-food movements
5. Global food distribution, malnutrition, and famine

 

1. Industrialization and Economic Development 13–17%
2. Growth and diffusion of industrialization
3. The changing roles of energy and technology
4. Industrial Revolution
5. Models of economic development: Rostow’s Stages of Economic Growth and Wallerstein’s World Systems Theory
6. Geographic critiques of models of industrial location: bid rent, Weber’s comparative costs of transportation and industrial location in relation to resources, location of retailing and service industries, and local economic development within competitive global systems of corporations and finance
7. Social and economic measures of development
8. Gross domestic product and GDP per capita
9. Human Development Index
10. Gender Inequality Index
11. Income disparity and the Gini coefficient
12. Changes in fertility and mortality
13. Access to health care, education, utilities, and sanitation
14. Contemporary patterns and impacts of industrialization and development
15. Spatial organization of the world economy
16. Variations in levels of development (uneven development)
17. Deindustrialization, economic restructuring, and the rise of service and high technology economies
18. Globalization, manufacturing in newly industrialized countries (NICs), and the international division of labor
19. Natural resource depletion, pollution, and climate change
20. Sustainable development
21. Government development initiatives: local, regional, and national policies
22. Women in development and gender equity in the workforce

 

VII. Cities and Urban Land Use 13–17%

1. Development and character of cities
2. Origin of cities; site and situation characteristics
3. Forces driving urbanization
4. Borchert’s epochs of urban transportation development
5. World cities and megacities
6. Suburbanization processes
7. Models of urban hierarchies: reasons for the distribution and size of cities
8. Gravity model
9. Christaller’s central place theory
10. Rank-size rule
11. Primate cities
12. Models of internal city structure and urban development: strengths and limitations of models
13. Burgess concentric zone model
14. Hoyt sector model
15. Harris and Ullman multiple nuclei model
16. Galactic city model
17. Models of cities in Latin America, North Africa and the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, East Asia, and South Asia
18. Built environment and social space
19. Types of residential buildings
20. Transportation and utility infrastructure
21. Political organization of urban areas
22. Urban planning and design (e.g., gated communities, New Urbanism, and smart-growth policies)
23. Census data on urban ethnicity, gender, migration, and socioeconomic status
24. Characteristics and types of edge cities: boomburgs, greenfields, uptowns
25. Contemporary urban issues
26. Housing and insurance discrimination, and access to food stores
27. Changing demographic, employment, and social structures
28. Uneven development, zones of abandonment, disamenity, and gentrification
29. Suburban sprawl and urban sustainability problems: land and energy use, cost of expanding public education services, home financing and debt Crises
30. Urban environmental issues: transportation, sanitation, air and water quality, remediation of brownfields, and farmland protection