High School Geography Project

The High School Geography Project was a curriculum study that started in 1961 with financing from the Ford Foundation as an answer to the declining interest and efforts in geography in the high school curriculum. The study continued through 1970. Beginning in 1964, the High School Geography Project was sponsored by the Association of American Geographers under a grant from the National Science Foundation. The first extensive classroom tryouts of provisional project units started in the winter of 1965 and continued through 1968. The High School Geography Project was organized on a settlement theme, consisting of six units: Geography of Cities, Manufacturing and Agriculture, Cultural Geography, Political Geography, Habitat and Resources, and Japan. All of the units were divided into activities that ranged in length from less than one class period to as many as eight or ten for a total of 46 in the entire course, nine or ten of which were considered optional. Each of the units contained a Teacher's Guide, Student Resources, and a host of other materials for use by the teacher and/or students.