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What's a good choice for high school geography?


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My dd is taking a ps high school enrichment class this year entitled "World Geography".  After she got into it, it turned out that it was definitely not going to be a full credit course.  I scrambled and bought the Oak Meadow World Geography course - just open and go.  I also added "Visualize World Geography" since she is mild to moderate dyslexic.

 

I have been pleased with the year.  It could have been much worse with the late start she got. We also added a lot of "current events" along with it.  If I had not been mislead by the ps class, I would have spent more time adding supplemental reading, but the late start really messed that up.

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I adapted the OM World Geography course to be an honors middle school one and really like the syllabus. It gives a range of activities & assignments for each chapter in the textbook so it is easy to tailor the challenge level to the student.

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Oldest used the OM World Geography as well. We added a world religions and mythology text to add more to the cultures aspect of it, and I added some work from the Ultimate Timeline and Geography Guide for extra political geography.  Neither of those needs to be added to the program though. 

 

I did get the TM and was glad that I did since I was not confident in geography myself. 

 

I wouldn't say it was an amazing geography course - it's a text book after all - but it definitely got the job done and was easy to implement and stay on track with. :)

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I did buy the OM TM to go along with the student's syllabus.  I am glad I did because with the late start we got, I just did not have the time to be looking through the book for the answers myself.  This is a good course if you want to git 'er done.  As stated earlier, there are some good assignment suggestions in there, as well.  You could also make it more engaging and beefier if you add additional outside reading, projects, etc.

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The PA Homeschoolers AP Human Geography looks great, though we haven't done it yet.

 

My ds, who is older than my dd, took AP Human Geography from PA Homeschoolers last year for 10th grade.  This is a good course and I highly recommend it.  It is much more "labor intensive" than the Oak Meadow course and deals mainly with the "human" side of geography.  The OM course, although it touches on the human side, focuses more on physical geography.

 

For our family and the fact that my two dc have entirely different learning styles - the AP course was a better fit and added a good challenge for my ds.  The OM course, along with some supplementation, was the best fit for my dd.

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Whether AP Human Geography will work depends on what your goals are. If you're looking for a standard geography course, the AP course may not fill the bill. It doesn't focus, for example, on various countries and what happens there. Instead, it talks about how population, land, culture, and economic situations interact. There will naturally be case studies and such which refer to specific places, but I just glanced over the 23 sample questions on the Course Description on the College Board website, and only about four or so have specific place names. The rest ask for things like the definition of a "centrifugal political force," what affects manufacturing locations, or how one measures population density—pretty abstract and theoretical.

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Has anyone done BJU or looked into HOD's new Geography course?  I'd love to hear thoughts/reviews on those as well.  We were all set to do Ancients again and my 9th grader put the brakes on it.  I'm kind of glad though.  I need a break from the classical cycle LOL!

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We chose to use PAC World Cultural Geography.  It was a good choice for us.  I prefer more color (the text is black and white) so I added internet and books/dvds from the library.

 

Around the World in 180 Days can also be used for high school.  

 

I looked at BJU and thought quite a bit about using it.  The text is very colorful and it contains a ton of information. Like PAC, it is a fairly new printing as well.  I was concerned about the pace that the course would set however.  If I could have started the program earlier and maybe taken 2 years, perhaps looped it with World History, then I think BJU would have been a good choice for us.   

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My daughter is currently halfway through the BJU course and we are both enjoying it... as much as one can enjoy Geography. She also takes the online course and really likes the teacher. The beginning covers more of the human side + economics, but quickly moves into the physical portion by geographical land area.

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Has anyone done BJU or looked into HOD's new Geography course? I'd love to hear thoughts/reviews on those as well. We were all set to do Ancients again and my 9th grader put the brakes on it. I'm kind of glad though. I need a break from the classical cycle LOL!

We tried the HOD world geography course with my 8th and 10th graders this year. Made it only a quarter of the way before we got bogged down. Not the program's fault, I just think it wasn't a good fit for our family. There were too many little parts and different activities to do each day. I liked the content, boys enjoyed the books for the most part (didn't really like the geography readers so much). My 11yo dd used HOD CTC and it fit her personality better. She liked the hands-on activities and the multitude of activities. That really isn't my boys' style. If you have any specific questions about the program, I'd be glad to try and help. Just pm me. :)
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Has anyone done BJU or looked into HOD's new Geography course?  I'd love to hear thoughts/reviews on those as well.  We were all set to do Ancients again and my 9th grader put the brakes on it.  I'm kind of glad though.  I need a break from the classical cycle LOL!

 

We use BJu for Geography. My girls used it with the DVDs; ds just used the book. I prefer the DVD method. Geography lends itself well to video. I feel like they got more out of it than ds did. Just going with the text was more than adequate though. 

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I would avoid a geography textbook from 2005.  Mine's from 2009, and I have to update it like crazy!!!  (Of course, we are currently doing Northern Africa and Southwest Asia, so probably one of the worst regions for lots of changes.)

 

A good place to start updating is http://www.scoop.it/t/geography-education  Click on the "funnel" icon to see the list of countries and tags you can filter by.

 

--Janet

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We used Glencoe this year and it worked well.  DD seemed to like it more than she usually likes things. ;)

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