For years, AP classes have been only accessible for tenth-twelfth graders, offering them college-level material but now, that’s beginning to change.
At Bowie High School, AP Human Geography has been introduced as the newest available AP course for ninth graders, marking the first AP course to be offered to freshmen.
“AP Human Geography focuses on a lot of writing,” AP Human Geography teacher, Matthew Parente said. “With a considerable amount of content that involves college level vocabulary and texts.”
According to freshmen Lauren Nyaribo, students who take Human Geography as an AP course love the atmosphere and the inclusive the topics being taught are.
“I like how descriptive and inclusive Human Geography is because it’s not just about land but also the diversity of people,” Nyaribo said. “I love the teacher and how I’m learning to see the world from a better perspective.”
The introduction of this new AP class offers ninth graders an opportunity to learn more about complex world-wide topics at a much earlier point in their high school journey.
“Human Geography looks at the influence of the land on humans. So we look at government, culture, and religion. Basically our lessons focus on what decisions humans make based on where we live,” Parente said. “For example, if we lived in the mountains, we should have a different way of looking at the world than if we lived in colder regions, like Canada. My point is in this class we take all things into consideration.”
Brooklyn Baker, the incoming freshmen who decided to take Human Geography as a class, wanted to experience a higher level course that would result in being more prepared.
“I chose to take AP Human Geography because I wanted to take something harder than academic World Geography,” Baker said. “I wanted to take the class because I thought it would help me prepare for the rest of high school!”
Many other students echo Baker’s and Nyaribo’s enthusiasm for this course but warn freshmen that the workload requires around three hours of homework a week involving critical thinking, research, and management skills.
“This class is an easier AP course, but has around three hours of homework per week,” Baker said. “You have to be able to comprehend and learn very quickly because there are many tests and quizzes.”
Typically schools reserve AP classes for older students who have more of an understanding of the necessary demands to take an advanced class. However, schools like Bowie are increasingly allowing there to be more access to freshmen.
“My understanding is that the district was encouraging us to enroll more people in AP classes,” Parente said. “We as a school were being compared to other schools like Lake Travis, Westlake, and Vandergrift that all offered AP Human Geography to freshmen. So, we as a school decided to try this new course out!”
Overall, AP Human Geography is a challenging course, involving college-level vocabulary, text, and homework. As the first accessible AP class for freshmen at Bowie, students see the class as a valuable opportunity.
“In this class we will learn to establish a reading habit where you become comfortable with reading that helps build up your vocabulary,” Parente said. “In general, we will be learning better writing skills that help students become more prepared for the AP exam and the rest of high school.”
