Social Sciences

Advanced Placement courses are reading and writing intensive in their approaches to prepare students for both the AP Tests and college. Personal initiative and an independent work ethic are keys to success in these classes

COURSE DESCRIPTION: AP Human Geography helps students analyze the world, their relationship to it, and the interactions of people in it. Students will learn how to look for geographic causes for events in different regions, compare geographic features and their effects on human life and see how their lives are connected to and affected by human and geographic conditions all over the world. Students will be able to answer the major geographic questions of “where is it happening?”, “why is it happening there?” and “what is the effect of the event?”. In this course, students write, read, discuss, present and analyze issues of global and local significance, with a focus on population and migration studies, language and religion and urbanization. AP Human geography prepares students to be part of the solution to the challenges facing humanity in the 21st Century. Students have the opportunity to take the AP Human Geography Exam in May with the possibility of earning college credit.

COURSE DESCRIPTION: Students wishing to fulfill the Economics and Personal Finance graduation requirement with this course must compete both AP components: Micro and Macro.

The microeconomic component of this AP course provides students with a thorough understanding of the principles of economics that apply to individual decision makers, both consumers and producers, within the economic system. The primary focus of the course is to help individuals develop an understanding of markets and the role the government plays promoting greater efficiency and equity in the economy.

The macroeconomic component of this course provides students with a thorough understanding of the principles of economics as they apply to the economic system as a whole. This portion of the course focuses on national income and price-level determination and develops students’ familiarity with economic performance measures, the financial sector, economic growth and stabilization policies, and international economics.

In this course, students are required to think critically about the complex issues surrounding a world with limited resources.

Students have the opportunity to take the AP Micro and Macro Economics exam in May with the possibility of earning college credit.

COURSE DESCRIPTION: Psychologists study all aspects of human behaviors: those that humans have in common with animals and those that humans do not, and those that range from peace-making to the microscopic functioning of a nerve cell. Students become psychologists in this course and expand their minds to analyze human behavior in methodical, organized, large-scale, small-scale, inquiry-based approaches. Students need to work hard to read about, understand, write about, discuss, and explain the ways humans behave.

Class participants study how humans learn, how humans inherit traits from their parents, how humans act in groups, why humans have emotions, and how humans sometimes engage in behaviors that are destructive.

Students have the opportunity to take the AP Psychology exam in May with the possibility of earning college credit.

COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course focuses on three main philosophical questions:

• Is there a purpose to life?

• What is the definition of a human being?

• How can human beings know anything for sure?

In this course, students explore their answers to these questions by studying the answers given to them by a diversity of cultures and traditions across the globe.

Students who take this course will explore the world of ideas and may develop some ideas about their place in the universe or may generate many more questions they would like to explore.

COURSE DESCRIPTION: In this course, students examine the ways in which people and nations relate to each other and develop their own ideas about how the new global situation should be addressed. Students in this course must closely read and listen to the news, too, because people are moving and taking actions all the time in today’s world, and lives are affected by people or events from beyond the national borders.

This course assists students in learning how they can contribute to the solutions to international problems and develop their own abilities to function on the increasingly interconnected globe.

COURSE DESCRIPTION: Teenagers of Aborigine heritage in Australia have traditionally gone through a “rite of passage” called a “Walkabout.”

They are meant to have a spiritual awakening in the Outback by surviving in the desert without supplies, and without even clothing, for one to two weeks. Students’ own backgrounds may call for a “rite of passage” for them. Why do religions have rites of passages and other ceremonies? Why do they have different types of ceremonies?

In this course, students explore questions like those above and examine and compare the practices, faiths, and literature of the major religions in the world today. They do so with readings, videos, creative and analytical writing, and discussion. The many beautiful, meaningful, and inspirational forms of religion in the world explain much about the world views and cultures of the diversity of people living on the globe today. Students who take this course improve their understanding of the people who share this planet with them.

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

In Global Social Issues, students learn that people on this planet have numerous differences yet face issues and challenges which are connected. Issues that may seem to impact only one area may actually impact other people and societies across the globe.

In this course, students study how humans behave and interact with each other. In some instances, people and nations work together on environmental concerns, and in others, people and nations work at cross-purposes on the environment.

Furthermore, with issues such as women’s rights, students discover a wide spectrum of views and approaches according to particular society’s culture and history.

COURSE DESCRIPTION: This course will survey African American history from precolonial Africa through the present. Students will be introduced to key concepts in African American history from early beginnings in indigenous Africa through the transatlantic slave trade, the Civil War, Emancipation, Reconstruction, the Civil Rights era and into the present. The course, offered in a variety of learning models, will give students an opportunity to explore social events and processes, individuals and agency, documents and institutions; and analyze past and present positions for future implications for African Americans. This course does require students to complete a Capstone project. Students will pursue independent research relative to the content on a question or problem of their choice and produce a learning object that reflects a deeper understanding of African American history.