Geography/World Civilization Course:
1.	one semester elective course
2.	textbook support:
•	Mazour and Peoples. World History: People and Nations. Harcourt, Brace and Jovanovich, Chicago, 1990
•	Wallis, Velma. Two Old Women. Harper Perennial, NY,1993 
•	Why Do People Create Maps. Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education and the Institute for International Studies
3.	Outline:
The course is built around the Five Themes of Geography. Each of the themes targets a particular period of ancient or current history, region and culture to assist in understanding the geography concept. The area study will vary according to the semester, but will include the following. There are certain threads that will continue throughout the entire course, in particular, the concepts of culture, ethnocentricity and the commonalities of man.
There will be a constant focus on writing, analysis and providing evidence to support the thesis of each paper/project/presentation.
A.	Location:
Using the cooperative activities of Why Do People Create Maps, students explore and analyze the functions of mapping, the concepts of tracing movement, describing places, forensic mapping, urban planning, understanding change over time, understanding Earth’s systems, and using maps to illustrate the characteristics of regions.
Student products include several essays, designing travel brochures, producing skits, creating songs an poems, panel discussions and debates.
B.	Place
Through studying the Inuit, San Bushman and/or Iroquois, students will be able to discuss and analyze the impact of the physical characteristics  of a region and their impact on the human characteristics of the regions ,i.e. the culture, inhabitants. Support materials include Two Old Women and related video support.
Products include summary presentations to the class, student led discussion groups and a culminating essay. Please see the attached 
C.	Human – Environmental Interaction
The students are teamed into pairs and must produce a one page current event, that includes summary, identification of central and underlying issues, region impacted, three support Internet sites and five open ended discussion questions. This becomes the basis for the a 30 minute presentation and discussion with their class. The class, in turn, prepares for the presentation by answering the five questions, in advance of the presentation. These reports and discussion continue over the length of the semester. Please see the attached Current Event instruction sheet.
D.	Region
Introducing the concept of human demographics and statistics, the students conduct, in teams, a series of interviews with campus staff, in order to create an interpretation of the study of their high school culture. Please see the attached support sheet for producing the final product.
E.	Movement
The students will study Ancient Greece, with a special focus on its physical characteristics, in role in the Mediterranean region, the development of democratic institutions and the philosophy of Socrates. 
The final product is a newspaper produced by each student that picks from the various topics to give us an understanding of the topics OR a series of debates focusing on the Greek view of Ethics and Rhetoric