AP Human Geography

Course OutlineGeography: Its Nature and Perspectives 5-10%

Population: 13-17%

Cultural Patterns and Processes: 13-17%

Political Organization of Space: 13-17%

Agricultural and Rural Land Use: 13-17%

Industrialization and Economic Development: 13-17%

Cities and Urban Land Use: 13-17%

The Exam

two-hours and 15 minutes

75 multiple choice (60 minutes)

3 essays in free response section (75 minutes- answer all 3 FRQ’s)

Students who score high enough on the exam can receive college credit for taking the course.

What is Geography?

DefinitionsLiteral Definition: a description of the earth

Emmanuel Kant: “History looks at change across time. Geography looks at change across space.”

Hartshorn: “Geography is the discipline that seeks to describe and interpret the variable character from place to place of the earth as the world of man.”

Greenland: “Geography is the study of the distribution and interrelationships of the elements of the human environment and the relationships between humans and the physical environment.”

Your Definition:

Method vs PerspectiveGeographic Method: using geographic information to describe the earth

Geographic Perspective: a geographic grid through which information is interpreted

Example: The Earth at Night

Geographic Investigation Process - 4 Level Analysis

Level 1 - What? Where? When? Scale?

Level 2 - Pattern Identification

Level 3

Why there?

How did it get there?

Level 4 (prediction)So what?

What if?

Impacts? Effects?

Earth at Night - Global Scale

North America at Night - Regional Scale

Online: 6/27/2006 - http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/49261main_usa_nightm.jpe

Your State at Night - Local Scale

Online: 6/27/2006 -http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/usanight_dmsp_big.gif

Geographic Investigation Process

Level 1 - What? Where? When?Level 2 - Pattern IdentificationLevel 3

Why there? How did it get there?

Level 4 So what? What if? Impacts? Effects?