AP Environmental Science

Overview of the course

The College Board designed course aims to provide students with the scientific principles, concepts and methodologies required to understand the inter-relationships of the natural world, to identify and analyze environmental problems, evaluate risks and examine alternative solutions to resolve these problems. The course is science based rather than humanities based and is designed to be the equivalent of a first year college science course. The course focuses on fostering a deep and enduring conceptual understanding of the topics covered while spending much time on inquiry based learning to develop the reasoning skills that are essential for further college study in all disciplines. The course focuses on topics such as earth systems and resources, the living world, population studies, land and water use, energy use, pollution and global change.

The class is taught in university level academic English. The students are required to understand written and spoken English and are given frequent homework assignments requiring both pre-class reading and post-class writing. Hence a strong focus on language skills permeates the entire course.