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AP® Human Geography

This Advanced Placement AP Human Geography course is equivalent to a first semester, college-level introductory human geography or cultural ecology course. The rigor of this course is consistent with colleges and universities and will prepare students for the Advanced Placement exam in May. Upon successful completion of the exam, students may receive college credit and will be well-prepared for advanced human geography or cultural geography coursework. Additional details on this course from College Board can be found here: AP® Human Geography.

In this course, students will explore three big ideas:

(1) Global patterns and spatial organization.

(2) Human impacts and interactions among other people, their environments, and their actions.

(3) Spatial processes and societal change.

The content in this course is presented thematically rather than regionally and is organized around the discipline’s main subfields: economic geography, cultural geography, political geography, and urban geography (CED). The goal is for students to become more geoliterate, more highly engaged in contemporary global issues, and better informed about multicultural perspectives. Students will develop skills in approaching problems geographically, using maps and geospatial technologies, thinking critically about texts and graphic images, interpreting cultural landscapes, and applying geographic concepts such as scale, region, diffusion, interdependence, and spatial interaction.

Students will be expected to enroll in My AP Classroom through their VHS Learning AP course and will be guided to complete review work in My AP Classroom throughout the year. My AP Classroom resources include AP Daily Videos and unit-based Personal Progress Checks, which include AP-style multiple choice and free response questions.

Students enrolled in VHS Learning Advanced Placement courses with a passing grade are expected to take the AP Exam. Students register for AP exams through their local school or testing site as “Exam Only” students. AP exam scores will be reported to VHS Learning through My AP Classroom; exam results will not affect the student's VHS Learning grade or future enrollment in VHS Learning courses.

This AP course has a required summer assignment. The summer assignment is a review of prerequisite content and critical concepts students must be comfortable with before beginning the course. Students are expected to complete their summer assignment before the course begins and submit their work by the end of Week 1. Students who register on or after September 1 will receive an extension to complete the summer assignment by the end of Week 3.

In this AP-level course, students are expected to invest approximately 10 hours per week on their course work.

Acknowledgements

  • In addition to the enrollment fee, this course has an Additional Course Fee of $80.
  • The required summer assignment for AP® Human Geography can be found in our AP® Summer Work Directory.

Course Objectives

Course Essential Questions:

  • How are the spatial patterns and organization of human society arranged according to political, historical, cultural, and economic factors?
  • How do complex relationships of cause and effect develop among people, their environments, and historical and contemporary actions?
  • How does the spatial perspective demonstrate ways phenomena are related to one another in particular places?

Course Learning Objectives:

  • Examine geographic theories, approaches, concepts, processes, or models in theoretical and applied contexts.
  • Visualize geographic patterns, relationships, and outcomes in applied contexts.
  • Interpret quantitative geographic data represented in maps, tables, charts, graphs, satellite images, and infographics.
  • Analyze and interpret qualitative geographic information in maps, images, and landscapes.
  • Apply geographic theories, approaches, concepts, processes, and models across geographic scales to explain spatial relationships.

Additional Requirements

This AP course has a required summer assignment. The summer assignment is a review of prerequisite content and critical concepts students must be comfortable with before beginning the course. Students are expected to complete their summer assignment before the course begins and submit their work by the end of Week 1. Students who register on or after September 1 will receive an extension to complete the summer assignment by the end of Week 3.