As we gear up for another thrilling year of teaching AP Environmental Science, a lot has changed since last year! We’re excited to introduce our new, bigger, and better Environmental Science Lab Manual, now in its 4th Edition. In addition, the College Board has made 19 free labs available on their website.
Jay and I decided to undertake the gargantuan task of revamping all of our case studies over the summer. We’ve already updated and rewritten more than half, and we expect all of them to feature current data, fresh images, and improved question designs sometime in September. We’ve also made some of them more concise, recognizing that classroom time is precious. We believe you will find the new editions of the case studies will not only be better at preparing your students for success but also make learning more engaging than ever before!
Every year, we receive many inquiries about our instructional plans for the upcoming school year. While we’re hesitant to be too prescriptive—there’s more than one way to teach effectively—we’re happy to share our recommendations for the year ahead. We hope that teachers, especially those newer to the course, will find value in this open discussion, which has consistently been one of our most popular blog posts. Much of it remains unchanged from last year because, if it works, why change it? That being said, read closely and keep an eye out for some nuanced adjustments that we’ve made along the way.
The 11 Foundations of our Instruction for the 2024-25 school year:
Vibrant discussions centered on case studies that include FRQ-style questions. Each case study is completed in 1 - 3 class periods. We ask students to read the introduction the evening before we start the case study to enrich classroom discussion and participation. The conversations and some of the writing and math practice are mostly done in class collaboratively. We then have thoughtful and robust conversations about each group’s responses during our class time together. For tips on how to most effectively use case studies in your classroom, check out the following blog posts:
The Case Study Method of Instruction
Laboratory investigations, field studies, simulations, and demonstrations selected from the Environmental Science Lab Manual 4th Edition (A variety from each unit, we swap a few in and out of each unit each year). We do a lot of investigations and demonstrations. Some of the demonstrations only take 15 minutes to do, while some of the longer investigations take multiple class periods. After the AP test is over, we will do some more of the lab investigations and field studies we didn’t have time for prior to the exam. Whether you are a new teacher to the course or a veteran looking for just a couple of fresh ideas, we truly think this lab manual is a must have. We’ll also use some of the free labs available on the College Board AP Environmental Science website. There are now 19 free labs on the website to pick and choose from.
Pushing Your Teaching Down the Learning Pyramid
Mr. Jordan Dischinger-Smede’s YouTube videos accompanied by Fill in Notes (Fill in Notes for his videos are readily available on the National APES Teachers Facebook Group). We sometimes give the presentations and sometimes we ask students to watch an episode and fill in the note packet for homework. On rare occasions we’ll show a video in class and the students will fill out the notes while it plays. We stop the video periodically so students can write. There is one video for every subunit in the curriculum and they average a little over 10 minutes each. Alternatively, some teachers prefer to use the AP Daily Videos on the College Board website or Tony Villareal’s Video Series, which is also aligned with the AP Environmental Science CED and organized by unit and topic. Each of these are excellent choices. Personally, we pick and choose videos from each of these sources.
FRQ’s. Students struggle with earning points on free-response questions. They must be precise, accurate, and succinct scientific writers (PASS is the acronym I use). At least once a marking period we’ll employ the “Grade the Grader” instructional strategy. We give out an FRQ for the unit we are studying. After 22 minutes, we collect them, shuffle the pile of papers, and pass them out randomly to other students along with the grading rubric. Other students grade them, sign their names as graders and turn them in 22 minutes later. Students earn a perfect score if they are +/- 1 point of the teacher’s score, and lose 10% for each point deviation thereafter. It FOCUSES the student's attention to detail.
Science Outside’s Climate Change Virtual Escape Adventure You get a lifetime subscription for unlimited students for $49. It’s fun, students learn a lot quickly, and it’s a totally different experience from any other lesson you teach. We do it every year and students love it.
AP Classroom Exams are taken online for each of the 9 Units. We also use one released FRQ as an assessment.
Mr. Dischinger-Smedes AP Environmental Science Ultimate Review Packets (available on his YouTube Channel) and Paul Andersen’s Bozeman Science AP Environmental Science Videos. Anecdotally, in our experience, the students who do the entire Ultimate Review Packet completely and enthusiastically do quite well on the AP exam.
Review for the AP Exam in Class. There are 3 Practice Exams available on the College Board’s AP Environmental Science website. We usually take 2 of them over two weeks in class just prior to the AP exam as a review for the whole year. We typically let the students take 40 MC questions, then we go over them together and we talk out loud our thought process for how we approach each question, eliminate choices, and select a choice. Student feedback on this process is quite positive.
We recommend that all AP Environmental Science Teachers join the National APES Teachers Facebook Group. It’s the largest professional learning community (PLC) for teachers of the course, and it’s a great place to ask questions and access resources. Via the comments to posts, you’ll be able to interact with Kati Morris, Kristin Shapiro, Jordan Smedes, Matt Wells, and other well-known APES teachers who often share great advice based upon their vast experience with the course.
As a professional AP Environmental Science teacher, we also recommend reading Kristin Shapiro’s monthly APES Newsletters. You can find them at the following link: https://www.schoolofshap.com/ap-environmental-science/apes-newsletters
They are full of helpful tips and insights to the course and a great place to check your pacing and get new ideas.
And, of course, if you have the opportunity to attend an AP Summer Institute or AP Workshop, we highly recommend it. You’ll meet lots of professional colleagues and learn tons about the course you teach.
Our instructional methods continually evolve, and so does our playbook. Yet, for those who are interested, this is our playbook for the 2024-25 academic year, and we hope some teachers, especially those newer to the course, benefit from our sharing it. For experienced teachers, you can stop reading here.
For those teachers who regularly contact us with granular questions about what we are doing in the classroom, we are happy to share again the specifics of our instructional plan for the upcoming school year below:
Unit 0: Introduction to Environmental Science
Environmental Science Safety Contract: Found in the AP Environmental Science Lab Manual 4th Edition
Investigations: Life in a Drop of Pond Water, Dollar Voting
Unit 1: The Living World: Ecosystems
Case Studies: Sea Otters (definitely, #1 choice by teachers and FREE on the Science Outside home page) plus one of the following: American Bison, Cicadas, Oysters, Eating at a Different Trophic Level
Demonstrations: Convection Currents, Dorito Calorimetry, Photosynthesis
Investigations: The Great Graph Match, Carbon Cycle, Nitrogen Cycle, GPP, Respiration, and NPP
Unit 2: The Living World: Biodiversity
Case Studies (Choose 1): Rinehart Brook (#1 choice by teachers), Beavers, Moose, Benthic Macroinvertebrates, Bighorn Sheep, Pronghorn, or Ruffed Grouse
Investigations: Soil Your Undies, Natural Selection, Island Biogeography, Ecological Tolerance, Benthic Macroinvertebrate Diversity and Water Quality
Unit 3: Population
Case Studies (Choose 2): Mule Deer, Wild Turkeys, or Canada Goose plus The Human Population (definitely)
Investigations: Predator/Prey, Quadrat Sampling, Estimating Population Size Using the Lincoln Index, Carrying Capacity, Exponential Growth and Doubling Time, Cemetery Survivorship Analysis, Exploring the Demographic Transition Model with Gapminder, GDP and Human Demographics
Unit 4: Earth Systems and Resources
Case Studies (We recommend doing both of these): Earthworms, Earth’s Climate
Demonstration: Convection Current
Investigations: Geologic Time Scale, Plate Tectonics, Soil Particle Composition, Soil Properties and Macronutrients, Global Wind Pattern, Angle of Solar Incidence, Earth’s Seasons, Specific Heat of Soil vs. Water
Unit 5: Land and Water Use
Case Studies (Choose 1): Coast Redwoods, Sustainable Agriculture
Investigations: Tragedy of the Commons?, How Much Space is Required to Feed You?, Root Length in Grasses, Virtual Mining, Copper Extraction, Ecological Footprint, Formulate a research question that explores how a person’s income impacts the size of their ecological footprint.
Unit 6: Energy Resources and Consumption
Sign up for a Switch Classroom account. This is a world-class FREE resource. Create a classroom. Browse the online lessons and assign at least one to your class. This resource is fantastic!
Case Studies (Choose 2): Firewood, Hydroelectric Power, Nuclear Power, or Wind Power PLUS Electric Vehicles (definitely)
Classroom Model: Pumped Hydro Energy Storage (PHES)
Demonstration: Ice Cube Tray Battery
Investigations: The Energy Project, Formulate a research question that explores how a person’s income impacts the size of their ecological footprint, Electricity, Build a Simple Electricity Generator, Generating Electricity with Wind, Energy Efficiency, Geothermal Heat Exchange (from AP Classroom), Snap Circuits Green, Energy Audit, How Many Solar Panels, The Global Cooling Problem
Unit 7: Atmospheric Pollution
Case Studies (Choose 1): Photochemical Smog, Asbestos OR Radon, Brook Trout in the Adirondacks
Investigations: Air Pollution Modeling, CO2 Emissions from Transportation, Photochemical Smog, Field Testing for Ground-Level Ozone, Thermal Inversion, Chalk Drawings, Acid Deposition, Formulate a research question on the impact of acid rain on the environment, Noise Pollution
Unit 8: Aquatic and Terrestrial Pollution
Case Studies (Choose 1): Plastic Pollution, American Alligators, Bald Eagle, The Great Stink, Solid Waste, Mountain Lions
Demonstration: Desalination
Investigations: Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Cleanup, Fecal Coliform Bacteria, Eutrophication, Bioaccumulation and Biomagnification, Campus Litter Survey, Plastic Footprint Calculator, Design Your Own Water Filter, Water Quality, One in a Million, LD50
April 1st: Sasquatch or another fun case study!
Unit 9: Global Change
Case Studies (Choose 1): Stratospheric Ozone Depletion, Climate Change, Gray Wolves in Colorado, Great Barrier Reef
Investigations: Ozone Depletion Model, Greenhouse Effect PhET, C-ROADS Climate Simulator Activity (free on our homepage), En-ROADS Climate Simulator Activity (free on our homepage), Albedo, The Impact of Melting Ice on Sea Level, Virtual Urchin - Our Acidifying Ocean, Ocean Acidification, Invasive Species, Google Earth Timelapse
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