AP ES
Course Resources are available to students through Google Classroom
NB - Information about the test format has changed since the above video was made.
Take APES, Get Angry!
by K.Cuthbert-Mikalunas
originally published in the Jet Jotter
Why should someone take AP Environmental Science (APES)? I’ve been asked to answer just that question . I’ve come up with several different reasons one might consider taking the course from the academic to the ethical.
I’ll start with the easiest answer first. It’s an AP class, so it looks nice on a transcript. That’s the easy answer, and probably the one of greatest concern to most of my readers. It might also be of interest to students who considered AP Bio, AP Chem or AP Physics C, but decided they weren’t ready. Because APES only covers one semester of college work (the others cover 2), by description there is more time to cover the content (AP Physics one is also 1 semester of college work). Does this mean the pace is slow? No, it’s similar to most of the other AP courses offered here. However, it should be noted that the colleges you are applying to are also aware of this difference.
Need another reason? Maybe you’re interested in seeing all of the science you’ve already learned here at LHS tied together. APES incorporates concepts from biology, chemistry and physics and throws in some earth science, math, history, politics, and economics just to keep it interesting.
Maybe, just maybe, you’re already interested in how the environment works and how humans are impacting it. You want to know more about global warming, alternative energy, pollution, endangered species, and population size. Perfect! Those are some of the major topics in the course.
But really, the longer I thought about it, the more the following answer solidified in my mind:
Take APES – It’ll make you angry!
What? Why would you take a class that makes you angry? Because your generation is being left a planet that is being continues to be used in an unsustainable way, and we’re all part of the problem. If everyone on Earth lived the way we do in the United States, it would take about 4 or 5 planet Earths to sustain our lifestyles. You might have noticed the unfortunate problem: We only have one Earth. Angry yet?
Did you know that those nice little microbeads in your face wash are actually plastic and are ending up in the Great Lakes and the Oceans? Did you know the birds on Midway Island are dying of starvation because their stomachs are full of plastic that has washed up on the beach and they’ve eaten after mistaking it for food– or even worse they feed it to their young? Did you know that 1 out of 3 people in the world do not have access to what we would consider adequate bathrooms, leading to among other things deaths associated with contaminated drinking water? Did you know that extinctions are occurring at a rate of about 1000 times what they have in the past, leading to concerns that we are currently in the sixth mass extinction (the dinosaurs were the fifth)?
The problems that your generation will deal with include feeding a growing population, a limited supply of fossil fuels, a changing climate, and rapid loss of species. When will these things happen? Most often the answer is predicted to be in the next 50-100 years. Sure, we may find a way around a problem. That’s worked for humans in the past! However, that means that people and governments need to support those efforts. How can you change what is happening if you don’t understand the underlying science?
So, Take APES, Get Angry!