Is there a geography curriculum designed for high school?

[praisefor3]

DD12th wants to do geography for her last half credit in social studies. So far I have only found curriculum for younger ages. Any suggestions?

[Quiver0f10]

BJU has a 9th grade geography and I don't see why you couldn't use it for 12th.

[Maverick]

Runkle's Physical Geography was written for high school (9th grade). BJU's geography is a one-year course. A Beka has a one semester high school course.

[RebeccaC]

Trail Guide to World Geography by Geography Matters has a high school level.

 

We are using BJU here. Plus some add work put together by me to be pair with living history books that are read;

 

It is not a formal course but I am giving a high school credit for it. I will try and explain what we are doing This past fall we read the book Kon Tiki and mapped all the countries, surrounding countries and islands mentioned in the book. We do this with just about every book we read. I also require research on each country which means answering these questions;

 

1. capital of the country and placing it on the map

 

2. mapping and listing other major cities

 

3. how many people per square mile in country

 

4. total population

 

5. square miles in the country

 

6. the highest point is

 

7. mapping and listing the major rivers or bodies of water are

 

8. listing major religion

 

9. list annual income

 

10. agriculture

 

11. main exports listed

 

12. what the currency is

 

13. what the official language is

 

14. what the form of government is

 

15. what the climate is

 

16. list and map all mountain chains, deserts, ect....

 

This is not a one semester or even one year course but on going with all maps and research answers kept in a geography notebook. I have several atlases and the cd of Uncle Josh's Outline Map Collection that are used plus the Internet and on line encyclopedias. I type out what is to be done that week and give it to them with the maps to be labeled.

 

They also map any journeys made in a book that is read. With Kon Tiki ocean currents and winds were mapped and longitude and latitude were listed for each Island and country capital. Before Kon Tiki my sons read a bio on William Cary and they mapped the route taken from England to India, ocean currents and winds, labeled capes, oceans, bays, channels, each country and port lised, ect.....

 

My boys are in 9th grade this year and I figure that if we do this all four years of high school they will pretty much cover the planet and earn a full credit for high school in geography.

 

Hope this helps,

Rebecca

[nmoira]

Consider building a unit study around Guns, Germs, and Steel. It's a great example of all branches of geography.

[Christine]

Runkle's Physical Geography was written for high school (9th grade).

 

I've used Runkle's and liked it.

 

To give you an idea of what it entails you could look on my blog (I have a schedule for it).

 

I have no experience with the others mentioned.

[Lynn in Caribbean]

http://www.hewitthomeschooling.com/serv/hsclasshx.asp

 

Just passing along the info - I cannot recommend it one way or another, since I have not used it.

[Anna]

For high school, I used 2 main ones that I liked :

 

Ready-To-Use World Geography Activities for Grades 5-12

By James F. Silver (secular text)

 

Abeka World Geography in Christian Perspective

This one was designed for school use in gr.9 but works perfectly for gr.12 as well.