In July 2022, the University of Tennessee and the Tennessee Geographic Alliance hosted a three-week summer institute funded by the National Endowment for Humanities (NEH) as part of its "A More Perfect Union" initiative to promote a deeper understanding of United States history and culture. Eighteen K-12 educators from across the country…

This paper will focus on how communities can respond to the impacts of a more dangerous world but will emphasize that there exist powerful barriers to climate change adaptation (CCA). This article explores why there are so many barriers to change and offers a simple mnemonic to organize the argument--A.D.A.P.T. The A.D.A.P.T. framework shows that…

This paper introduces four local field studies designed and conducted by two Advanced Placement Human Geography (APHG) teachers. All of these activities were designed for ninth-graders taking APHG courses. Both teachers implement multiple instances of field study in different units of the APHG curriculum throughout the academic year (e.g., two…

The purpose of this article is to introduce two easy-to-use analytical tools--OPTIC (Overview; Parts; Title; Interrelationships; and Conclusion) and SCRAP (Spatial-Temporal; Conditions, Connections, or Comparisons; Region; Aura, Association, or Analog; Pattern or Exceptions)--that can help teachers guide student learning with maps and photos.…

In this paper, the authors introduce a student project that can help students stay engaged in Advanced Placement Human Geography (APHG) classrooms through the end of the year, through a project that can be implemented after the APHG exam is given. The tight curriculum schedule of APHG leaves little room for implementing student-centered learning…

The Advanced Placement Human Geography (APHG) exam consists of two sections: sixty multiple-choice questions (MCQs) and three free-response questions (FRQs); both sections have equal percentages in the exam weighting (College Board 2020). Because the main motivation of the students taking this course is to earn college credit by scoring a three or…

Discussions are one of the activity types that help students build their content-related background knowledge, understanding, and concepts through various communication approaches. Students express and share their perspectives and ideas with other students through a small- or large-group discussion. The formats of discussions may vary; they may be…

In 2011, the authors developed a new study abroad course in China as part of the University of Colorado Denver Global Study program. The program focused on short-term, intensive, international field study conducted during the three-week break period between the spring and summer semesters. The course, "Sustainability Along the Yangtze,"…

Offered through the Honors College at the University of New Mexico, Conexiones-Ecuador is an explicitly interdisciplinary study abroad program around the theme of "Food, Sovereignty, and Development." In an immersive language and cultural studies experience, students live with host families, take Spanish language classes at the…

In this article, the authors discuss a hybrid program that included a ten-day interdisciplinary study abroad trip to France, followed by ten days of online learning. Students were recruited from across the university through campus-wide marketing and recruiting events, but the majority of the students who enrolled were those majoring in one or…

This article presents a technique for interweaving information literacy (IL) into a pre-existing assignment of an introductory general education human geography course. The course, titled Geography of Sport, represents a unique opportunity to introduce students to contemporary methods of geographical study and analysis through a range of…

As the COVID-19 pandemic evolves, many students are struggling to make sense of it. Geography--straddling the intersection of physical and cultural processes and with its strong interest in patterns across space--sits at a unique point of intersection for understanding the pandemic. Instructors have a responsibility to help students better…

Food is essential to human existence. What we eat and how we eat says who we are. There has long been interest in describing and explaining our connections to food as well as understanding the different ways food shapes our lives. In the last decades, there has been an explosion of interest on food issues. Best-selling books such as "The…

The food experience involves much more than physical nourishment but also the practice of acquiring, preparing, and sharing food that defines the foodscape. This lesson will look at the term foodscape and describe its application to Mexican migrants developed in the thesis "Transnational Mexican Foodscapes in Colorado Springs" (Greenleaf…

Map literacy is a key goal of geographic education learning outcomes. Geography classrooms develop map literacy through practicing map skills (Sandford 1986; Hanus and Havelková 2019). One area where map skills pedagogy is deficient is in teaching the analysis and interpretation of maps as inherently political objects, with bias and latent meaning…