It should come as no surprise that an Advanced Placement Human Geography teacher would welcome a journey into the unknown.

“I have a new project that I’m going to get ready to start. You’re going to get together a PowerPoint and [use] a GIS program, where you actually create the map,” said teacher Brooke Owen-Thomas, who added that the project has been improved from the way it was done last year.

“I’m going to launch this project to be the first time I’ve ever done it, so we’ll have to see how it goes. A lot of the work will be done online, and the presentations will have to be posted to my workbox online,” she said. “[That way] I can access them, and they can access them through the computer to work on them at home. And then when they present them in class, instead of doing it from a jump drive, they’ll do it from [the website] online. I’m just going to have to see how it goes because I’ve never done it before.”

The new program will give students an easier way to learn the information.

“It’s a little bit different [from last year], but it’s available online with a lot more power,” Owen-Thomas said.

Sophomore Holly Cappelmann, a former Human Geography student  recalled last year’s project.

“I thought that they were a good way to work hands-on with the material,” she said. “The visual made it a lot easier to understand boundaries, and I was often surprised by what would come up on the map.”

Cappelmann likes the idea of being able to access the information online for future students.

“I think it would be beneficial to the students because it would cut down on the amount of computer lab time that the teacher needs to reserve.”

Owen-Thomas is also working on a textbook adoption program that will bring new materials to the course.

“I think having an online extension of the textbook would be a great idea. When I was taking the course, I often relied on the internet for definitions and explanations, but they would contradict with what the book said a lot,” Cappelmann said.

By Natalia Marmol