Next year, students will have the opportunity to take another social studies class, AP Human Geography. This will be the first year LB is offering this course, and interest is growing quickly.

“AP Human Geography introduces students to the patterns and processes that shape humans now and historically,” AP World teacher Michelle Devoti said.

Devoti took interest in this class when she took it in college. She found the class fascinating and had a passion to teach it to other students at LB, she said.

“The class is interesting because it is an intersection of economics, resource use, physical geography, population movement and culture,” Devoti said.

The process to get this class in the curriculum was not easy, and Devoti had to work hard. She first had to be trained to teach the class. She then saw that other FCPS schools offered this course.

However, Devoti was not exactly sure about how to start a class. But she got help from others, and it finally happened.

“The new social studies department head chair, Kathleen Young, really pushed for this course and made it possible for it to be offered at school next year,” Devoti said.

At the electives fair in January, Young’s room was used for AP Human Geography. After it was over, Young told Devoti that her classroom was full throughout all three sessions.

However, some students may have been misinformed about AP Human Geography.

“A confusion that some of the seniors might have is the thought that AP Human Geography can substitute their government requirement,” Devoti said. “However, that is not true. AP Human Geography is just an elective course.”

The success of the electives fair led to students from Devoti’s current and previous classes to ask about the new class.

“It sounds a lot like what we learned in AP World,” junior Julia Donlon said. “I think it really explains events that are going on right now.”

Donlon compares this class to AP World and sees similarities and differences between the two.

“It seems like a lot less stressful of a class,” Donlon said. “AP Human Geography seems as if it is based more on movement of people, and I like that because it explains how the world got connected.”

Devoti is excited to teach this class next year, but she hopes that she won’t have to teach two AP courses next year.

“Teaching two AP classes is very challenging,” Devoti said. “A couple of people in the history department are doing this, and it is simply not possible for them to be the best teacher that they could be. I want to teach a class that I am familiar with while teaching this new class.”

At the end of taking an AP course, students have to take the AP exam. The AP Human Geography exam is similar to the AP World exam. The AP exam has a multiple choice and free response section. Students will have an hour for 70 multiple choice and 75 minutes for three free-response questions.

The free- response question portion is not to be written in a formal structure. Normally, students will be given a visual or graphic to base their response off of.

The workload of the class also seems manageable and not too time consuming.

“The No. 1 question I get is whether or not students will have to take notes for every chapter in the textbook like in AP World or AP U.S. History,” Devoti said. “The answer is no. The chapters are too small to take weekly notes. This makes it a bit more difficult for me because students will have to learn the material in a new way. They will have to view history and current events through a new lense.”

Teaching this is going to be challenging, but Devoti is up for it.

“I want students who are excited about the interdisciplinary nature of the class,” Devoti said.