In past years I had been using another AP Environmental teacher's documents that outlined the learning objectives and essential knowledge statements for each unit. I had some students who appreciated seeing the list of key concepts that they needed to know for the units as they prepared for tests. When I tried to use the first unit document at the end of the summer, I realized that the link was no longer active. I searched through the AP Environmental teachers Facebook group and found a spreadsheet with all of the information for every unit. I thought I might try to use ChatGPT to help me remake the documents by unit. This turned out to be a bigger challenge than I anticipated. By the beginning of the school year, I had rough drafts of each of the documents, but so far, only the first 6 units are finished as final documents.
In these documents, the learning objectives have been converted into "I can" statements, organized by topics with essential knowledge statements below. At the end of the document there are tables that include the key enduring understandings and science practices for that unit.
I've turned out to use the documents far more than I thought I would for this year's class. These documents are the first pages in the packet I hand out to students at the beginning of the unit. As we are reviewing for the unit test, I make note of some of the key essential knowledge statements based on the questions that will be on the test. Students highlight and make notes as well on their copies. I also started using the document for test corrections. This needs a blog post of its own though.
One other note. I teach at a Christian school and last year, my scores for Biblical integration were not stellar. I was surprised, since for me I think of AP Environmental Science as a way to learn how God expects us to take care of the earth. To me, it's all Biblical. Part of my change to be more explicit this year, was to add a verse to these documents that I felt fit well with the topics of the units. Obviously, this will not work for all classes, but if you want to use these documents, feel free to edit after you make your copy of the document.
Here are links to the documents that are final draft.
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