AP® Human Geography
Syllabus
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.
Unit 1: Thinking Geographically (Weeks 1-4)
Unit Level Essential Questions
- Why do geographers study relationships and patterns among and between places?
- How do geographers use maps to help them discover patterns and relationships in the world?
- How do geographers use a spatial perspective to analyze complex issues and relationships?
Week 1: Welcome to AP Human Geography
Weekly Learning Objectives
- Understand the rules and policies of the course, and expectations of you as a contributing member of our learning community.
- Begin to build community by sharing important information with your teacher and classmates about yourself and your school, and creating a social contract together for guidelines on interacting throughout the class.
- Develop your skills for navigating the course environment and using the various course tools.
- Identify and explain the benefits and drawbacks of map types and projections.
Week 2: Geographic Data and Spatial Concepts
Weekly Learning Objectives
- Identify who gathers geographic data, how it is gathered, and why it is used.
- Describe the consequences of decisions made using geographic data.
- Identify geographical concepts and explain how they are used to interpret connections between places and people.
Week 3: Human and Environmental Action
Weekly Learning Objectives
- Discuss how the processes of environmental alteration vary from one group of people to another based on how they use the land and natural resources.
- Explain how geographers have shifted their thinking from the theory of environmental determinism to the theory of possibilism.
Week 4: Scales of Analysis
Weekly Learning Objectives
- Define scale of analysis and describe how geographers apply scale in geographic analysis.
- Interpret spatial patterns using characteristics of regions.
- Explain what is meant by regional identity and how it may be threatened by contested boundaries
Unit 2: Population and Migration Patterns and Processes (Weeks 5 -8 )
Unit Level Essential Questions
- How does where and how people live impact global culture, political, and economic patterns?
- How does the interplay of environmental, economic, cultural, and political factors influence changes in populations?
- How do changes in population affect a place’s economy, culture, and politics?
Week 5: Population Distribution, Composition, and Consequences
Weekly Learning Objectives
- Identify and explain the methods used for calculating population density.
- Describe the age structure of populations using population pyramids.
- Evaluate how the world's population has grown over time using demographic measures.
Week 6: The Demographic Transition Model and Malthusian Theory
Weekly Learning Objectives
- Analyze the stages of the demographic transition model and explain how it illustrates changes in birth and death rates over time.
- Evaluate the stages of the epidemiological transition theory and identify the main causes of human deaths.
- Explain Malthus's theory of population, its major criticisms, and contemporary implications.
Week 7: Population Policies and Demographic Change
Weekly Learning Objectives
- Identify and discuss pronatalist and antinatalist policies.
- Evaluate how women's status correlates to fertility and mortality rates and migration patterns.
- Analyze how aging populations are calculated and how they impact societies around the world.
Week 8: Causes and Effects of Migration
Weekly Learning Objectives
- Identify and discuss push-pull theory and how it explains migration processes and patterns.
- Explain Ravenstein's Laws of Migration and how they can be applied to contemporary societies.
- Define and evaluate the differences between forced and voluntary migration.
- Evaluate the economic, political, social, and environmental effects of global migration.
Unit 3: Cultural Processes and Patterns (Weeks 9-15 )
Unit Level Essential Questions
- How does where people live and what resources they have access to impact their cultural practices?
- How does the interaction of people contribute to the spread of cultural practices?
- How and why do cultural ideas, practices, and innovations change or disappear over time?
Week 9: Introduction to Culture
Weekly Learning Objectives
- Identify and explain how architecture, land use, and food preferences shape cultures.
- Explain how cultural traits and attitudes impact place.
- Discuss the different perspectives known as cultural relativism and ethnocentrism.
Week 10: Cultural Landscapes
Weekly Learning Objectives
- Describe the elements of the cultural landscape.
- Explain how cultural identities are revealed in the cultural landscape.
- Explain how attitudes, values, and power relationships shape the cultural landscape.
Week 11: Cultural Patterns and Types of Diffusion
Weekly Learning Objectives
- Explain how, through placemaking efforts, cultural traits create a distinct sense of place for neighborhoods, cities, and countries.
- Discuss how cultural traits like linguistic patterns and religious beliefs act as both centripetal and centrifugal forces.
- Describe the different types of diffusion.
Week 12: Historical and Contemporary Causes of Diffusion
Weekly Learning Objectives
- Discuss how colonialism, imperialism, and trade shaped cultural patterns and practices.
- Identify and explain how languages emerge from new groups of people interacting with each other.
- Explain how globalization and technology are reshaping cultural patterns.
Week 13: Diffusion of Language
Weekly Learning Objectives
- Identify the cultural hearths of the major languages and explain how they diffuse through expansion and relocation diffusions.
- Identify the major language families and their divisions.
- Analyze visual representations, such as maps and language family trees, to discuss how languages are distributed.
Week 14: Diffusion of Religion
Weekly Learning Objectives
- Discuss the characteristics that distinguish ethnic religions from universalizing religions.
- Identify the major religions of the world by analyzing visual representations, such as maps and charts, of different religions.
Week 15: Effects of Diffusion
Weekly Learning Objectives
- Identify and explain how new demographic patterns and cultural influences have impacted places.
- Discuss and provide examples of how syncretism is a result of cultural diffusion.
Week 16: Review and Assessment Week
Unit 4: Political Patterns and Processes (Weeks 17-20 )
Unit Level Essential Questions
- How do historical and current events influence political structures around the world?
- How are balances of power reflected in political boundaries and government power and structures?
- How can political, economic, cultural, or technological changes challenge state sovereignty?
Week 17: Introduction to Politics, Political Power, and Territoriality
Weekly Learning Objectives
- Describe the world political map and different types of political entities.
- Identify the concepts that shape the political geography and boundaries of the world.
- Identify the concepts geographers use to describe political power and territoriality.
Week 18: Types and Functions of Boundaries
Weekly Learning Objectives
- Identify and describe different types of boundaries.
- Explain how boundaries influence identities and interactions between governments.
Week 19: Forms of Governance and Challenges to Sovereignty
Weekly Learning Objectives
- Explain the differences between unitary and federal states.
- Discuss how devolutionary forces and supranationalism challenge state sovereignty.
- Discuss the consequences of centrifugal and centripetal forces.
Week 20: Introduction to Agriculture, Patterns, and Diffusion
Weekly Learning Objectives
- Discuss the hearths and diffusions of agriculture.
- Explain how climate influences agriculture.
- Describe the different types of agricultural practices.
Unit 5: Agriculture and Rural Land-Use Patterns and Processes (Weeks 21 - 24)
Unit Level Essential Questions
- How do a people’s culture and the resources available to them influence how they grow food?
- How does what people produce and consume vary in different locations?
- What kind of cultural changes and technological advances have impacted the way people grow and consume food?
Week 21: The Agricultural Revolutions and Production Regions
Weekly Learning Objectives
- Discuss the characteristics and consequences of the agricultural revolutions.
- Identify and describe subsistence and commercial production regions around the world.
- Explain how commodity chains, technology, and economies of scale influence agriculture.
Week 22: Spatial Organization of Agriculture and the von Thunen Model
Weekly Learning Objectives
- Explain the interdependence of the global supply chain, agricultural production, and consumption.
- Explain how the von Thunen model applies to historic and contemporary patterns of agriculture.
Week 23: Consequences and Challenges of Agriculture
Weekly Learning Objectives
- Explain how agricultural practices affect the environment and society.
- Discuss the benefits and challenges of contemporary agriculture.
- How are women's roles impacted by agricultural practices?
Week 24: Review and Assessment Week
Unit 6: Cities and Urban Land-Use Patterns and Processes (Weeks 25- 27)
Unit Level Essential Questions
- How do physical geography and resources impact the presence and growth of cities?
- How are the attitudes, values, and balance of power of a population reflected in the built landscape?
- How are urban areas affected by unique economic, political, cultural, and environmental challenges?
Week 25: Urbanization and the Globalization of Cities
Weekly Learning Objectives
- Explain how and where cities originated.
- Discuss which processes influence patterns of urbanization.
- Describe world cities and their roles in globalization.
Week 26: Structure and Distribution of Cities
Weekly Learning Objectives
- Define and describe urban systems and urban hierarchy.
- Explain the models and theories that describe the internal structure of cities around the world.
- Discuss how density, land use, and infrastructure shape metropolitan regions.
Week 27: Urban Sustainability and its Challenges
Weekly Learning Objectives
- Identify and describe sustainable design initiatives in urban geography.
- Discuss the positives and challenges of urban sustainability practices.
- Identify and describe the political, economic, social, and environmental impacts of urban population changes.
Unit 7: Industrial and Economic Development Patterns and Processes (Weeks 28 -30 )
Unit Level Essential Questions
- Why does economic and social development happen at different times and rates in different places?
- How might environmental problems stemming from industrialization be remedied through sustainable development strategies?
- Why has industrialization helped improve standards of living while also contributing to geographically uneven development.
Week 28: The Industrial Revolution and Patterns of Development
Weekly Learning Objectives
- Describe the industrial revolution and how its diffusion impacted societies.
- Explain the main economic sectors and their distinct development patterns.
- Identify and discuss the factors that influence the location of manufacturing
Week 29: Theories of Development and the World Economy
Weekly Learning Objectives
- Explain the different theories of economic development.
- Describe the different measures of social development.
- Discuss the impact of economic development on the roles of women around the world.
Week 30: Global Economic Change and Sustainable Development
Weekly Learning Objectives
- Explain the basis for international trade and how economies have become interdependent.
- Explain how new production practices and technologies have reshaped the world economy.
- Discuss how sustainable development policies may impact the environment and industrialization.
Unit 8: AP Practice Exam and Review (Weeks 31-33)
Unit Level Essential Question:
- How can I prepare for the AP Human Geography Exam?
Week 31: Review and Practice Exam
Learning Objectives
- Complete a full AP Human Geography Practice Exam
- Reflect on our learning
Week 32: AP Exam Review
Learning Objectives:
- Analyze our experience and results on the AP Human Geography Practice Exam
Week 33: Wrap Up
Learning Objective:
- Reflect on our learning and say goodbye to our classmates