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Kathryn
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While we have quite a bit of leeway in TX, I'm trying to make sure DD has comparable classes so when it's time for possible college, we don't have any gaps relative to her public school peers or what the TX colleges would be seeking.
So, for 9th grade they call for a "World Geography Studies" as an entire year's class and credit. I'm having a hard time finding something to fit this. I guess I'm not sure what geography course could possibly be meaty enough to use for a full year's class credit. Any suggestions?
I've thought about doing something in conjunction with history although public school only does 2 yrs of history (10th grade is world history and 11th grade US from 1877). We could easily add some history and use it as an elective credit. I could forget about trying to do a full geography class for 1 year. ??
Thoughts?
PS: DD is a very good reader so I could easily add some real books for learning if there's not a particular curriculum to follow.
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Kathryn in TX
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SallyT
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I might build in a geography component over several years of history -- ancient/medieval-Renaissance-early modern/U.S. -- and award a separate credit for geography, which you could put in your transcript wherever you liked.
Sally
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SallyT
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Otherwise, I'd assign a lot of travel writing in whatever year it was that the credit made the most sense. Richard Halliburton (1920s-era traveler/explorer/writer) is a lot of fun. Mater Amabilis has a book of his assigned for geography at the 7th or 8th-grade level, but his writing is appropriate for high school as well -- not too "young."
Sally
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Kathryn
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Ok, well at looking at the public school site, I found quite a lengthy explanation of what is expected for this class. I wish I could copy and paste but it's a pdf file.
Again, fortunately I don't have to particularly follow this since TX does have such flexible homeschooling laws so I'm really thinking more in terms of college necessity.
I checked the local Catholic high school and they offer a World Geography class too. Here's what their site said:
"This course introduces students to the global regions of South Asia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and Pacifica. Students are responsible for identifying and locating the various nations of the regions as well as correlating the impact of topography on culture. The major challenge of this
course involves understanding the seven aspects (social organization, traditions/history, language, arts, religion, government, and economy) and applying this template to targeted cultures. Students are expected to complete a variety of assessments for credit."
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Kathryn
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I emailed a friend whose DD will be attending the Catholic school to see if she knows what text they are using. I just don't want to use a secular, public school text for sure. It seems maybe this is where they discuss different cultures, religions etc. with the public school mindset of "everything is equal" as to not offend anyone. 
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CrunchyMom
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SallyT wrote:
Otherwise, I'd assign a lot of travel writing in whatever year it was that the credit made the most sense. Richard Halliburton (1920s-era traveler/explorer/writer) is a lot of fun. Mater Amabilis has a book of his assigned for geography at the 7th or 8th-grade level, but his writing is appropriate for high school as well -- not too "young."
Sally |
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The history covered in Mater Amabilis Level 3 alongside the Halliburton is a world overview using The Story of Mankind or The World’s Story by Elizabeth O’Neil.
I would think that you could use one of these histories alongside the Halliburton to add some meat and get some history in while still fulfilling the World Geography requirements.
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I would have geography spring from our history studies as Sally suggested - across the four years of high school. And then count it as a full geography credit in World Geography.
This is a list of a few of our favorite **living :: panoramic :: Geography* for high school:
Why Greenland is and Island, Australia is Not, and Japan is up for Grabs: A Simple Primer for Becoming a Geographical Know-It-All by Joyce Davis - used this in 9th grade and we really enjoyed it. Ties in wonderfully with current events.
In the Steps of the Master by H.V. Morton - excellent geography of the Middle East and Holy Land. Morton has several other books for other areas - I haven't read any of those, but they'd be worth checking out.
The Path to Rome by Hillaire Belloc - pre-WWI Europe, beautiful writing from a Catholic perspective.
The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain - a delightfully humorous tale of Twain's trip across the ocean to the Holy Land and Europe and his impressions of the people and cultures! A true delight!
Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain - pre-Civil War on the Miss. River.
Kon Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl - voyage across the Pacific Ocean to the South Seas.
The Gerald Durrell books - all of which are travel based books which also have as a theme conservation of animals. Great for crossover from geography to nature study.
The Royal Road to Romance by Richard Haliburton - Haliburton is an excellent story teller and he has many adventures of travel to share. These are excellent. You can also read and enjoy his books, The Occident and The Orient in The Complete Book of Marvels (Note - these work well for middle schoolers as well, but are quite appropriate for high school reading!)
Waugh Abroad: The Collected Travel Writing by Evelyn Waugh - here is an example much like Twain's books, in which an excellent storyteller author describes extensive travel. The result is so engaging and vivid! Waugh's travels cover an extensive amount of geography!!
There are several installments of the History Channel program How the States Got Their Shapes and these make an excellent US geography study! Very, very interesting and engaging! Based on the book How the States Got Their Shapes by Mark Stein.
I have more, but I'm out of time! These should give you a start though, and you could certainly build a World Geography course out of these.
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Also...the Travel Thru History programs are excellent!
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Jen Mackintosh
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Serial posting 
Drive Thru History
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Jen Mackintosh
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SallyT
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We LOVE The Royal Road to Romance! And Gerald Durrell -- geography, nature study, comedy . . .
And we've liked the Drive-Thru Histories as well.
That's a great list overall, Jen. I'm bookmarking it for future reference. A kid who had read all these books would be plenty geographically literate, too, very probably more so than her public-schooled peers.
Sally
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Martha
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Taking notes..
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mooreboyz
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World geography teacher created resources
We used this workbook last year and it was the most thorough one I could find. I combined this with a list of countries for each continent I wanted them to memorize. We would do geography bees on these countries along with the features in the workbook. I gave them exams at the end of each continents workbook pages asking questions from all the pages from resources to animals.
You could combine this with some reading and maybe a research paper here and there. Depending on what your child is into the papers could be about business customs, historical, current events, or whatever.
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I had a small 10thgrade World Geo class last year. There were 6 kids and I would send a syllabus out each week. Then we would meet once a month for a mapping quiz, jeopardy style game on what they read over the month and then food!
I utilized Abeka's World Geo for half of the year (it is a half credit course with Abeka) and then we did Runkle for the second half. So it was a good combo of both World and Physical Geo, but we called it World Geo on the transcript.
Besides weekly reading, I added in weekly trail guide questions, paragraphs to be written about current events, landforms and landmarks, google earth searches, travel videos and the like. I also added in novels to be read each month with a required book review paper, movies to watch set in that region with movie reviews to be written as well.
Also they were suppose to be practicing their mapping/labeling skills weekly. We used the Geography Coloring Book and then just blank map labeling. They had to label countries, some capitals, major bodies of water and major mountain ranges.
It definitely worked out to be a full credit. I offered to some of the moms to grade their kids' work...which was really just me checking for content, not form. A couple of moms felt that would help "motivate" their kiddo...so I charged a very small fee for that.
It was a lot of fun and I plan to actually do the same thing this upcoming year with my rising 9th grader. I don't think I'll do a "class"...but who knows!
OH and PS about Abeka...we didn't find any anti-Catholic sentiment in this particular book. There were paragraphs about and questions about "famous" missionaries...we skipped those, no big deal.
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Kathryn
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WOW...you ladies are always such a wealth of information! I will be checking out all of these resources and figuring out a plan. Great tips and help.
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Martha
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i was listening to NPR and they had a fascinating travel writer on there.
His book Hidden Cities, sounds right in line with Jen Mack's list. I really like and plan to use this list for geography this fall.
i also already own Glencoe's World Geography, so i think this will work together wondefully.
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leanne maree
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We followed Mater Amabilis as well, but I wanted DD to have a good drasp on Physical Geography..
I used World Physical Geography- Brenda Runkle..It was excellent. It covered the physical world...
It really rounded off Geography for us
Leanne
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leanne maree wrote:
| I used World Physical Geography- Brenda Runkle..It was excellent. It covered the physical world... |
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I also use this text for my 9th graders. My dd shared her thoughts here, I felt it gave them a fantastic foundation. Actually anything from Geo Matters looks awesome.
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And to give credit where credit is due.
Erin was the one who suggested the book to me.
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Kathryn
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Thought some might be interested to see the book the local Catholic high school will be using...
The Earth and Its People
I sure hope the teacher can somehow bring that to life.  Thought?
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Martha
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I've decided to "make" a World Geograohy course for my 9th grader.
Here's some booklist recs from Ambleside Online
http://www.amblesideonline.org/GeographyOptions.shtml
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4Real Forums : High School Years and Beyond
Topic: World Geography Studies
