District 11 Educational Support Services
Social Studies


Human Geography 1 AP: Course Overview  

Course Number: SS.HUGE1AP

 
Overview
View the Video Introduction. Advanced Placement Human Geography is a course designed to address primary questions of geography, including the spatial analysis of the human population on the earth, a comprehensive view of settlement patterns and land use issues around the world. Themes of the course will include fundamental concepts of geography, population geography, spatial patterns of power, cultural geography, settlement and land use patterns, and issues of spatial analysis and economic change. Students will have the opportunity to take the National Advanced Placement Examination at the end of the school year.

Prerequisite: None
Course Length: 2   Period Length: 1   Grade Level:  11-12  Credit per Semester: 1
Additional Credit Information: Credit Per Semester: 1.0 (Social Studies, Humanities or Elective) 

 

Career Connection: This course introduces students to the types of work performed by Sociologists, Historians, and Geographers.  

For Teachers
Quarter 1  2
Quarter 3  4
No Prerequisite
Next Course

Enduring Understandings - important ideas that students should carry with them years beyond the instruction received this year.

  • Maps, charts, and graphs are used to acquire, process and report information about people, places and environments.
  • Human and physical characteristics define regions.
  • Physical processes shape the earth's surface and have effects on people's lives
  • Human migration impacts cultural development of societies.
  • Human and physical systems interact and impact one another. 
  • Changes that occur in the meaning, use, location, distribution, and importance of resources affect human and physical systems
  • Understanding the past, present and future requires knowledge of people, places, and environments.

Essential Questions - most important “big picture” questions students should be able to answer after completing learning activities.

  •  Why study Geography?
  •  Where, why there? Why should we care?
  •  How, and why, do people define regions?
  •  What careers are based on a knowledge of geography?
  •  How do physical processes shape the earth’s surface?
  •  What are the positive and negative effects of physical processes on people’s lives?
  •  How do global concepts impact people’s lives?
  •  What are the physical characteristics that give a place meaning?
  •  What are the human characteristics that give a place meaning?
  •  Why do people move?
  •  How do people modify/adapt and/or depend upon the physical environment?
  •  How has technology expanded human capacity to modify the environment?

  •  How do societies value and use Earth’s natural resource?

  •  Why are ecosystems important in understanding the environment? [extended]

Standards and Benchmarks
Standard
G1:  Students know how to use and construct maps, globes, and other geographic tools to locate and derive information about people, places, and environments.  
Benchmark A:
 Students know how to use maps, globes, and other geographic tools to acquire, process, and report information from a spatial perspective.
Benchmark B:
Students develop knowledge of Earth to locate people, places, and environments.
Benchmark C:
Students know how to analyze the dynamic spatial organization of people, places and environments.
Standard G2: Students know the physical and human characteristics of places, and use this knowledge to define and study regions and their patterns of change.
Benchmark A: Students know the physical and human characteristics of places.
Benchmark B: Students know how and why people define regions.
Benchmark C: Students know how culture and experience influence people’s perceptions of places and regions.

Standard
G3: Students understand how physical processes shape Earth’s surface patterns and systems.
Benchmark A: Students know the physical processes that shape Earth’s surface patterns.
Benchmark B: Students know the characteristics and distributions of physical systems of land, air, water, plants, and animals.
Standard G4: Students understand how economic, political, cultural and social processes interact to shape patterns of human populations, interdependence, cooperation, and conflict.
Benchmark A: Students understand how economic, political, cultural and social processes interact to shape patterns of human populations, interdependence, cooperation, and conflict.
Benchmark B: Students know the nature and spatial distribution of cultural patterns.
Benchmark C: Students know the patterns and networks of economic interdependence.
Benchmark D:
Students know the processes, patterns, and functions and human settlement.
Benchmark E: Students know how cooperation and conflict among people influence the division and control of Earth’s surface.
Standard G5: Students understand the effects of interactions between human and physical systems and 
changes in meaning, use, distribution, and importance of resources.
Benchmark A: Students know how human actions modify the physical environment.
Benchmark B:
 Students know how physical systems affect human systems.
Benchmark C: Students know the changes that occur in the meaning, use, location, distribution, and importance of resources.
Standard G6: Students apply knowledge of people, places, and environments to understand the past and present and to plan for the future.
Benchmark A:
Students know how to apply geography to understand the past.
Benchmark B: Students know how to apply geography to understand the present and plan for the future. 
 

Sample Units

District 11 Diamond Units/Lessons Overview - includes information about the purpose, goals and structure of these sample instructional units:

Resources

Parent Resources

 

Teacher Resources

 


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