AP Human Geography Lynch: 2014-15Syllabus

Overview

The purpose of this course is to:

  • Introduce students to the study of human geography. As with all geography courses, we will pay particular attention to the spatial relationships, patterns, and processes that have defined our interaction with Earth’s surface.
  • Study the methods and tools used by geographers and their applications.
  • Examine human-social organization and related environmental consequences.
  • Prepare you to take the College Board’s Advanced Placement Human Geography Exam in May.

Objectives

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to

  • Explain geographic concepts such as location, space, place, scale, pattern, regionalization, and globalization.
  • Identify patterns of population growth, distribution, and decline.
  • Identify different types of human migration and the reasons for it.
  • Explain the origins, development, and distribution of languages and religions
  • Define a nation-state and identify the factors that determine the power/ influence a nation-state has in the world community.
  • Outline how diffusion of cultural moves through time and space to new locations.
  • Understand different land use models, the distribution of crops and animals, extensive and intensive agriculture.
  • Explain why the world is divided into a well-developed core and a less developed periphery.
  • Describe how places and regions acquire comparative advantages for development.
  • Categorize where cities are and why they are there.

Textbook

De Blij, H.J. and Murphy, Alexander B. Human Geography: Culture, Society, and Space, 7th ed., New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons, 2003.

Evaluation

Readings and assignments

Reading assignments are provided in the textbook or will be distributed by the instructor. Reading is to be completed prior to the beginning of class. The due dates for written assignments will be given as the work is assigned.

Grading scale

There will be straight points on which your grade in the course is based loosely on the following:

  • Projects = 30%
  • Quizzes and exams = 40%
  • Blog/Current Event Assignment = 15%
  • Semester and cumulative final exam = 15% (Per Semester)
  • Grade scale is traditional: 89.5%-100% = A, 79.5%-89.4% = B, 69.5%-79.4% = C, 58-69.4% = D, 0%-57.99% = F.
  • For successful completion of this college level course, you will need to have done the readings in a careful and reflective manner, complete all homework and class work assignments, and perform well on tests and quizzes. Do not procrastinate, your grade in this course and on the AP exam are allergic to procrastination. Falling hopelessly behind will not only make successful passage of the course and the AP exam impossible, but you may also be recommended for removal from the class and perhaps placed in an appropriate level course.

Academic Honesty (Bd. Pol. 5131.9)

Definition: Academic Dishonesty is a deliberate attempt to disrupt the learning process by misrepresenting another’s work as one’s own. Dishonesty during tests or classwork includes unauthorized communicating; copying materials or allowing another student to copy; using prohibited notes or devices; obtaining prior knowledge of test content; and/or removing or distributing all or part of any test. Copying another person’s assignment; providing homework/classwork for another student to replicate; plagiarizing or submitting a paper or project which is not one’s own work; and submitting falsified information for grading purposes are also examples of dishonesty.

Consequences:

First Infraction

  • The teacher will conference with the student and record a zero for that assignment.
  • Within five school days, the teacher will notify the parent and send a referral to the appropriate administrator noting the infraction.
  • The student will be placed on contract, with the understanding that a second infraction in the same or any other class will result in the student’s removal from the course in which the second infraction occurred. The contract will remain in effect for two years from the date of infraction.

Second Infraction

  • The teacher will send a referral to the appropriate administrator noting the infraction.
  • Within five school days, the parent will be notified, and the student will be removed from the course and placed in a Study Hall with a failing grade for the semester.

Late work

  • Late work will only be accepted due to an excused absence.
  • Excused means that the school wide attendance system has notified me that your absence has been cleared according to school records.
  • You will have an equal number of days to complete missing assignments and tests or quizzes, as you were absent.
  • If work is due during your absence,the missing work must be turned in immediately upon your return to class.
  • It is the student’s responsibility to find out what work was missed during his or her absence.
  • Points missed for activities, class discussions, and oral presentations may be made up through an alternate assignment.

You have chosen to challenge yourself by enrolling in this course. I am here to facilitate your experience in the class and will take you as far as you chose to go!

Tear hear and return to Mr. Lynch by Friday August 28, 2015

Student sign and print name:

I have read and understand all of the guidelines and will do my best to prepare for the AP Human Geography test on Friday May 13th.

Parent/Guardian sign:

I have read and understand all of the guidelines for my child and will do my best to help them be successful this school year.

Unit One: Geography, its Nature and Perspectives (5-10%) Days: 20

What basic questions do geographers ask when interpreting the world around them? What tools do geographers use? Why are places where they are and is there a pattern there that can be applied elsewhere?

  • Introduction to the study of geography
  • Major themes and concepts in geographic study
  • Spatial analysis

De Blij: Chapter 1

Unit Two: Population (13-17%) Days: 22

Which trends help define how population is distributed across the globe? Why are some of Earth’s regions densely populated, and other sparsely? What make people move and what are some common migration patterns? What problems are associated with population growth?

  • Introduction to population geography and demographics
  • Worldwide population trends
  • Migration processes
  • Dimensions of population growth
  • Crude death rate (CDR), crude birth rate (CBR), total fertility rate (TFR), and infant mortality rate
  • The Demographic Transition Model

De Blij: Chapters 2 and 3

Unit Three: Cultural Patterns and Processes (13-17%) Days 21

What is culture? How and why is culture diffused? How is culture imprinted on landscape? How is culture affected by globalization? What are the advantages and disadvantages of globalization? How can language, religion, ethnicity, race and gender be represented spatially?

  • Introduction to cultural processes
  • Major world languages, their classification and distribution
  • Diffusion of languages
  • Toponymy and place names
  • Multilingualism and linguistic transition zones
  • Origins and distributions of religions
  • Diffusion of religions
  • Central beliefs, monotheism, polytheism
  • Secularism and its rise
  • Religion, culture, and conflict

De Blij: Chapters 4, 5, 6, and 7

Unit Four: Political Organization of Space (13-17%) Days 22

What is political geography? What is geopolitics? What is the difference between a nation and a state? How and why are boundaries drawn? How is national identity created?

  • State and nation
  • Rise of the modern state
  • The nation-state
  • Spatial analysis of states, relative location
  • Boundaries and frontiers
  • State organization and power
  • Geopolitics, theories
  • Internal political structure
  • Multinationalism
  • Supranationalism, League of Nations to United Nations
  • Law of the sea
  • Devolution: Europe, Soviet Union
  • New World Order

De Blij: Chapter 8

Unit Five: Agricultural and Rural Land Use (13-17%) Days 20

What types of activities dominate rural life? Where did agriculture come from? What are the three agricultural revolutions?

Introduction to agricultural and rural geography

  • First agricultural revolution
  • Plant and animal domestication, subsistence faming
  • Second agricultural revolution
  • Agriculture and the industrial revolution
  • Von Thunen’s Model
  • Third agricultural revolution
  • Farming technologies
  • Land use in the rural sector
  • Housing and landscape, structure and materials, diffusion
  • Villages, forms and regional contrasts
  • Transformation of rural areas, globalization

De Blij: Chapter 11

Unit Six: Industrial and Economic Development (13-17%) Days 20

What factors account for uneven economic development across the globe? What is the relevance of the growth theories of economic development? How has globalization affected labor, finance and markets around the world?

  • Introduction to global economic development
  • Preindustrial world, industrial revolution
  • Locational interdependence
  • Major industrial regions
  • Concepts and models of development
  • Global economic disparities
  • Deindustrialization and the rise of the service sector
  • New international division of labor
  • Foreign direct investment
  • Specialized Economic Zones (SEZs)

De Blij: Chapters 10, 12, 13 and 14

Unit Seven: Cities and Urban Land Use (13-17%) Days 20

What are the major differences among some major world cities? What is urbanization? How do cities evolve? What is the Central Place Theory?

  • Ancient cities and early civilizations
  • Models of urban places
  • The changing city
  • Patterns of cities
  • Global urbanization and city-ward migration
  • Megacities

De Blij: Chapter 9

AP Human Geography Exam—Friday, May 13th, 8:00 a.m.

APHG-Syllabus-2015