Social+Studies

http://www.districtadministration.com/article/geography-flat-world From the article: That message is beginning to sink in at districts and larger institutions around the country, including the College Board, which since 2001 has offered an AP exam in human geography that covers a curriculum worlds apart from what was taught years ago. The students taking that exam have grown in number from 3,200 the first year to 87,000 in 2011 and an estimated 100,000 this year.

“In the past we used to believe that you needed to know what were the names of the seas, what were the capitals of different countries, and what was the difference between a hill and a mountain,” Monk recalls. She points out that the course she teaches nowadays asks a different set of questions, such as, “Where are people located around the world, how do they alter their environment, and what kind of occupations do they pursue in developed and undeveloped countries?”

The juniors and seniors in Monk’s AP class also study conflicts over borders between countries; the diffusion of religions over entire regions, such as the growing influence of Islam in southwest Asian countries like Indonesia; and even high-tech examples, such as how texting led to reviving an indigenous language in Africa.

This site is a great source for both students and teachers. It is filled with hundreds of primary documents to use in the classroom from letters to artwork. []