Geography: Its Nature and Perspective

I. Geography: Its Nature and Perspectives The AP Human Geography course emphasizes the importance of geography as a field of inquiry and briefly discusses the emergence of academic geography in nineteenth century Europe.  The course introduces students to the importance of spatial organization—the location of places, people, and events, and the connections among places and landscapes—in the understanding of human life on Earth.  Geographic concepts emphasized throughout the course are location, space, place, scale, pattern, regionalization, and globalization. These concepts are basic to students’ understanding of spatial interaction and spatial behavior, the dynamics of human population growth and movement, patterns of culture, economic activities, political organization of space, and human settlement patterns, particularly urbanization.  Students learn how to use and interpret maps. They also learn to apply mathematical formulas, models, and qualitative data to geographical concepts. The course also makes use of the concept of the region, encourages students to consider the regional organization of various phenomena, and enables students to create regions in order to illustrate process.  A significant outcome of the course is students’ awareness of the relevance of academic geography to everyday life and decision making. This combination of the academic and the applied gives students a sophisticated view of the world and an understanding of the manifold applications of what they have learned in the course. Human Geography Course Description, Fall 2010, College Board AP.