''Agriculture, Food, and Rural Land Use" constitutes a major part of the AP Human Geography course outline. This article explores challenging topics to teach, emerging research trends in agricultural geography, and sample teaching approaches for concretizing abstract topics. It addresses content identified as "essential knowledge"…

This article describes the findings of a study involving a professional development program that prepared middle school teachers to integrate content on the earliest eras of world history and world geography. In particular, this study focused on participants' (n = 37) use of geographic resources to integrate geography and history and to encourage…

This article explores the contemporary function and value of field-oriented geography experiences for university-level students. The article details the design and delivery of an interinstitutional field course that partnered faculty and students--both graduate and undergraduate--from two geography programs with different curricular and research…

Easier access to submeter imagery has fueled debates over ethical uses of remote sensing. Some have called for ethics instruction to counter undesired uses of the technology. Here, this article reports the results of a survey examining attitudes related to teaching ethics in remote sensing. It was found that 52 percent of respondents teaching…

Through an instructional approach, this article offers a template for a classroom-based geography capstone course grounded in pedagogical elements of synthesis and reflection, as based on exploration of ten key geographic ideas. It provides insights into course goals, structure, and components for instructors who may wish to implement it in…

This article draws upon the author's experiences with designing and teaching a lower-level undergraduate course, Geography and Gender. It is proposed that there is a relative lack of resources available for conducting geography courses on gender, feminism, and/or sexuality and as such, this article addresses issues of text selection, course…

Increasing multicultural course offerings in the undergraduate curriculum is a challenge for geography programs. Effective approaches to teaching multicultural geography of the United States include emphasizing institutional affects on minority populations and the life experiences and geographic expressions of minority groups. This article shares…

During academic year 1999-2000, the Geography Department at Michigan State University (MSU) launched a program of online geography courses. Since then, four undergraduate online geography courses have been collectively developed and delivered to over 4,500 domestic and international students in association with MSU's Virtual University Design and…

This contribution to the "Comments" section first introduces a metric designed to estimate the amount of attention given to different countries of the world in academia using Internet "term paper mills". This metric is used to introduce a call for the incorporation of more geographic education regarding peripheral areas of the world into the…

Outlines a course in Digital Terrain Analysis taught at Michigan State University (Lansing) during the 1997 spring semester. Explains that focus groups were conducted with enrolled students about the usefulness of the course material and with geography majors and non-geography majors to determine any barriers they might have in taking the course…

Introduces this special issue of "Journal of Geography" focusing on the teaching of Advanced Placement (AP) human geography. States that essays were developed by members of the AP Human Geography Development Committee focusing on areas in the human geography course outline which are included in the appendix. (CMK)

Addresses the population section of the Advanced Placement course outline for human geography, focusing on four themes: (1) geographical analysis of population; (2) population distribution and composition; (3) population growth and decline over time and space; and (4) population movement. Identifies strategies for instructional activities.…

Explores the concept of culture focusing on how to demonstrate the complexity of cultural patterns and processes in the Advanced Placement human geography course. Describes key concepts and approaches such as cultural differences, environmental impact of cultural attitudes, cultural landscapes, and cultural identity. (CMK)

Explores the political geography aspect of the Advanced Placement (AP) human geography course that provides students with an understanding of the nature and significance of political organization of territory. Focuses on issues such as the nature and significance of political boundaries and the evolution of the contemporary political pattern. (CMK)

Discusses the four sections of the Advanced Placement (AP) human geography course focusing on agriculture: (1) development and diffusion of agriculture; (2) major agricultural production regions; (3) rural land use and change; and (4) impacts of modern agricultural change. Includes references and a resource list. (CMK)