AP Human Geography Welcome to AP Human Geography! I hope that you are at least half as excited as I am about spending a semester discussing and analyzing topics that both impact us, and are impacted by us. How big is our human footprint on our planet? How has the human population moved and changed over time? What role does ones belief system play in decisions they make? Where does our food come from and what path does it take in route to our table? I believe you will find this course to be extremely relevant and interesting. Summer Information . Attached you will find the outline for the course and your Summer Choice Reading Assignment. Choose something that looks interesting to you. Why wait until August when you can start your adventure in Human Geography today!!!! It is as simple as paying attention to your surroundings, such as, transportation patterns, architectural styles of homes in your neighborhood, reading labels of different food products and produce, listening to local, as well as world news and being aware of day to day activities that define you. Traveling this summer? Take notice of how the places you visit are similar to, or different from, San Antonio. Do they speak a different language or just have a different accent? Try foods that are not commonly found back home. Be observant! Be inspired! Contact information. Email Please email me from your school gmail account so that I am able to create a group for future emails. Send your email to [email protected] . Feel free to email me this summer with questions or to share summer experiences and observations. I would love to see pictures from your travels, grandma’s house or your visit to a local farmers market. Inspire me! Remind – I have already set up a Remind account for 2016 AP Human Geography. To receive messages via text, text @2016aphu to 81010. Or to receive messages via email, send an email to [email protected] . Course Description The purpose of the AP Human Geography course is to introduce students to the systematic study of patterns and processes that have shaped human understanding, use and alteration of Earth’s surface. As the interdependence of the world increases through international trade and finances, we increasingly find nations more interdependent. Policy decisions made in one country can drastically affect another. This global union requires citizens in all countries to be attune to our differences and perhaps and how all types of resources are used within and across countries. Through this course students employ spatial concepts and landscape analysis to examine human social organization and its environmental consequences. Students will also learn about the methods and tools geographers use in their science and practice. AP Exam May 12, 2017 Fall/Spring Semester: th th This is a onesemester class for 11 and 12 grade students who have previously taken World Geography in th the 9 grade. The class will be taught in the fall semester. During the spring semester, students will be expected to attend weekly study sessions during the nine weeks leading up to the May test date. Study session dates will be made available at the end of the fall semester. Student Evaluation Grades are calculated on the district social studies guidelines. Exams and Projects 50% Maps, graphs, questions, quizzes & lab work (count double) 50% Exams will be modeled after the AP Human Geography Exam, timed multiple choice questions, and a separate timed freeresponse question. Course Timeline Topic % on AP Readings Time Exam I. Geography: Its Nature and Perspectives 510% Chapter 1 2 ½ weeks II. Population and Migration 1317% Chapter 2 & 3 3 weeks III. Culture/Cultural Patterns 1317% Chapters 4 – 7 2 weeks IV. Political Geography 1317% Chapter 8 2 weeks V. Agriculture 1317% Chapter 11 2 weeks VI. Urban 1317% Chapter 9 2 weeks VII. Industry & Economic Development 1317% Chapters 10 & 12 2 weeks Summer Reading Assignment, Free Choice . The Sense of Place is an essential theme of this class. The following books evoke a strong sense of place for the reader through the description of human and physical characteristics, as well as human emotion. Your selection for this assignment may be fiction or nonfiction. You may read one on the list or one of your own choosing, with teacher approval. The book should paint a picture of the place through the author’s words. Below is a list of books that meet these criteria. Nonfiction : Angus, Colin, and Ian Mulgrew, Amazon Extreme (Brazil) Benanav, Mark, Men of Salt, Crossing the Sahara on the Caravan of White Gold (Mali) Bixler, Mark, The Lost Boys of Sudan Bryson, Bill, A Walk in the Woods (USA, Appalachian Trail) Carlin, John , Invictus (South Africa) Crane, George, Bones of the Master (Mongolia) Carr, Rosamond, Land of a Thousand Hills: My Life in Rwanda Chen, Da, Colors of the Mountain (China) Demick, Barbara, Nothing to Envy (North Korea) Gallmann, Kuki, I Dreamed of Africa (Kenya) Jenkins, Peter, Across China Kim, Richard, Lost Names: Scenes from a Korean Boyhood Lansing, Alfred, Endurance (Antarctica) Larson, Erik , Isaac’s Storm (Galveston, Texas) Lopez, Barry, Arctic Dreams (Canadian Far North) NzenzaShand, Sekai, Songs to an African Sunset (Zimbabwe) Orwell, George, Burmese Days: A Novel (Burma/Myanmar) Otter, Steven, Khayelitsha (Township in South Africa) Rose, Chris, 1 Dead in Attic: After Katrina (New Orleans, LA) Strayed, Cheryl, Wild (USA, Pacific Crest Trail) Woods, Donald, BikoCry Freedom (South Africa) Urrea, Luis Alberto, The Devil’s Highway (Illegal immigrants crossing Arizona desert) Fiction : Hosseine, Khaled, A Thousand Splendid Suns (Afghanistan) Huong, Duong Thu, Paradise of the Blind (Vietnam) LaPierre, Dominique, City of Joy (India) L’Amour, Louis, Last of the Breed (Siberia) Soueif, Ahdaf, In the Eye of the Sun (Egypt) Stewart, George, Earth Abides (United States) Assignment: Before writing your essay, take time to read Edward Relph’s essay, “Sense of Place” to enhance your understanding of what I am looking for in your analysis of your book. When writing your report p lease integrate, where applicable, the five geographic themes of location, movement, place/perception, human/environment interaction, and region. The book you have selected evoke a strong sense of place. Use your understanding of sense of place as you complete this assignment. Write a 500 – 750 word typed and doublespaced essay. The first paragraph should be a concise synopsis of the book. Develop the rest of your essay around the following: o How does the author create a sense of place? o What spatial concepts does the author use to create a sense of place? o Select two or three short quotes from the book that illustrate the sense of place painted by the author (include parenthetical page references). o How well does the author create a “well defined geographical sense of Place”? The Sense of Place by Edward Relph What is the sense of place? It is a combination of characteristics that makes a place special and unique. Sense of place involves the human experience in a landscape, the local knowledge and folklore. Sense of place also grows from identifying oneself in relation to a particular piece of land on the surface of planet Earth. Another way of looking at sense of place is contrast: places like strip malls have little sense of place because they more or less all look very similar, often have no name and no one who wants to spend any time there or write anything about them. Whereas places that exhibit a strong sense of place have an identity and character recognized immediately by a visitor and valued deeply by residents. Writers and geographers have been thinking about the subject for some time. Wendell Berry famously said 'If you don’t know where you are, you don’t know who you are'. Wallace Stegner interprets this as "... talking about the knowledge of place that comes from working in it in all weathers, making a living from it, suffering from its catastrophes, loving its mornings or evenings or hot noons, valuing it for the profound investment of labor and feeling that you, your parents and grandparents, your allbutunknown ancestors have put into it. He is talking about the knowing that poets specialize in." That is a sense that requires time, energy, and paying attention to realize. Many people in the 21st century spend so much time online, in their cars, at Starbucks, or in an office that they may have little connection to any unique place. Is the sense of place becoming a lost sense? Perhaps, although you can always go to Las Vegas to see shiny replications of the Eiffel Tower or Luxor pyramids. Some of the tools for recording facets of the sense of place include maps, photographs, virtual reality, neogeography sites like Platial, stories, poems, interpretive displays, paintings, and other evidence of the human experience in a landscape. Examining these entry points can get you started appreciating the sense of place, but it is not anchored until you experience a place personally. So step outside and build up your placeness quotient.
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