Ben Smith
Palos Verdes Penninsula High School, Rolling Hills, CA
Email: smithb@mail.pvpusd.k12.ca.us
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Ben is a graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the 2009-2010 academic year marks his twenty-third year of teaching environmental and biological science. He has taught in public schools for eighteen years, a private school for three years and for one year his classroom was Yosemite National Park, where he taught environmental science and natural history with Yosemite Institute. Ben has been involved in the Advanced Placement* Environmental Science program since 1996. In July of that year, he participated in the Environmental Science AP* “Train-the-Trainers” workshop held at Dartmouth College, where approximately twenty-five high school instructors from across the country gathered with a number of college faculty members to discuss and explore potential laboratory and field investigations, as well as other course content.
In September of 1996, Ben piloted the course at Palos Verdes Peninsula High School in Rolling Hills, California, with 128 students in four sections. Ben has been a College Board Environmental Science workshop presenter since 1998, leading approximately 40 single-day workshops and 26 week-long summer institutes across the United States, in locations such as Chicago, Salt Lake City, Dallas, Seattle, Detroit, Honolulu, Houston, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Denver, Las Vegas, La Jolla, Tacoma, Durango, and Lake Tahoe, to name a few. In September 2005, he traveled to China to lead a two-day environmental science workshop for teachers preparing to teach the course in Shanghai, New Zealand, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Indonesia. He has made numerous presentations at conferences organized by the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), the National Biology Teachers Association (NABT), and the California Science Teachers Association (CSTA). Ben served as an Environmental Science Resource Reviewer for the College Board’s AP* Central website and is the author of the AP* Central article entitled, “Teaching AP* Environmental Science to Large Classes”. He also authored a portion of the AP* Instructor’s Guide to accompany G. Tyler Miller’s environmental science text Living in the Environment, published by Thomson/Brooks-Cole in May of 2006. To date, he has taught 60 sections of AP* Environmental Science and approximately 1,700 students in this course. He co-chaired the Environmental Science AP* Redesign Commission and is currently a member of the Curriculum Design and Assessment Committee for this course.
Ben served as a Table Leader for the 1998, 1999, & 2008 Environmental Science Exam Readings and as a Question Leader for the 2000, 2001, 2002, and 2003 Readings. He served as one of the Alternate Exam readers for the 2004-2006 Readings. He served as a member of the AP* Environmental Science Development Committee from 1998-2002. In November of 2001, Ben received the Siemens Foundation Award for Advanced Placement* Teaching. In November 2005, he received the Educator of the Year honor for the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District.
Ben has participated in two Earthwatch Institute field research projects, gathering data in 1997 for the “Moose and Wolves of Isle Royale” study and in 2001 while on the “Snow Leopards of Nepal” project in the Annapurna region of the Himalayas. In the summer of 2003, he worked as a backcountry ranger with the National Park Service in Lassen Volcanic National Park and also worked as an interpretive ranger in Yellowstone National Park during the summer of 2009. During the 2004 summer, he lived on the Homathko Glacier for 28 days while participating in the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS) Waddington Range mountaineering course in British Columbia. In addition to backpacking, climbing, and cross country skiing, Ben enjoys trail running, cycling, and triathlons. He is a finisher of the Western States 100 Mile Endurance Run and the Everest Challenge Cycling stage race in the Sierra Nevada and White Mountain Ranges in California.
In addition to teaching five sections of Environmental Science at Peninsula High School, Ben is currently enrolled in a graduate program at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment and will complete his degree in environmental science, policy, and management in May of this year.
Course Overview
Our Overall Plan for our four days together:
A. Materials
1. The College Board AP* Environmental Science Participant’s Manual:
Teacher’s Guide, Released Exam, 2010 FRQs/Rubrics/Samples
2. Handouts: Course content/information, labs, activities, resources
3. Some of Ben’s FRQs
B. Teaching AP* Environmental Science: Thoughts/Approaches/Strategies
1. Prerequisites; The most important prerequisite
2. Students taking AP* Environmental Science:
3. Equity and Access
4. The Importance/Significance of Class Discussions
5. Lecturing: How I have modified lecture-time since 1996
6. Course timeline, Syllabi, Time Management, Lecture/Discussion
7. The Course and The May AP* Exam
8. The Course Redesign
9. Comments on some of the Free Response Questions from 1998-2009
10. Sample Lessons
11. The Textbook Choice
12. Resources & Support Materials:
Books, Lab/field manuals, Periodicals, Equipment, Videos
13. Identification and discussion of “Problem Areas”
14. The importance of “experimental design” labs; inquiry
15. “Positive Messages”
16. Field Trips and guest speakers
17. Summer assignment(s)? -Pros and Potential Cons
18. Web locations
19. Research projects, long-term lab and field investigations
20. Possible “Post-May AP* Exam” assignments, labs, literature, videos, etc.
C. What’s “New” with APES?
1. Course Redesign: “Best Practices”, Problem Solving, Experimental
Design/Inquiry, Synthesis and Evaluation
D. The 2010 AP Exam FRQs: discussion
E. The APES Redesign: comments
F. A brief look at and comments about some of the forty-four FRQs from previous Exams (1998-2009)
G. Strategies for helping students prepare for chapter or unit exams, as well as the May AP Exam. We can probably apply H. below to the quality of rest which our students might get in late April/early May as well.
H. Thoughts on how we might reduce the number of April and/or early May nights that we wake up at 2:30 a.m. thinking about AP Environmental Science topics that we could have spent more time exploring.
I. Thoughts on improving and continuing the strengths of AP* programs:
1. Stay current: You are here! – Thank You for giving up a valuable week of your summer break to participate in this workshop. –Your students are fortunate to have you as their teacher.
—in addition to summer workshops, — one-day institutes.
2. Network with other APES Teachers; discussion groups, AP Central.
3. The “Reading”: attending the AP* Environmental Science Exam Reading in June. The AP* Reading may not occur at an ideal time for some, but I think that you will find this experience to potentially be a very valuable one. (2011 APES Reading in Cincinnati.)
Course Outline
Day 1
1. Overview of the AP* Environmental Science Course.
2. Review of the AP*ES Participant’s Manual.
3. Course Outline and objectives.
4. The “AP*ES Course” and the “May AP* Exam”.
5. Prerequisites and the students taking the course; “The most important prerequisite.”
6. Textbook options/text selection.
7. Planning the AP*ES course: mapping out the 180 days or so you have with your students:
A. Scheduling and Pacing: how long to devote to each of the topic areas:
B. Techniques, strategies, and suggestions for teaching this course.
C. Overview of laboratory work, field investigations, and demonstrations.
D. Grading: exams, quizzes, homework, labs, reports, presentations,
projects, and other assignments.
E. A “typical two-week period” in Ben’s AP*ES classes; sample lessons
8. Resources and Support Materials
9. Preparing for the AP* Exam.
10. A look at the major “Problem areas”: mistakes and misconceptions that students
often make or have regarding environmental science concepts; how to
prevent/overcome these errors.
11. Set-up/conduct Laboratory and Field investigations.
Day 2
1. Specific information on the Seven Major Topic Areas in the course outline:
I. Earth Systems and Resources…………..10-15%
II. The Living World…………………………..10-15%
III. Population………………………………….10-15%
IV. Land and Water Use………………………10-15%
V. Energy Resources and Consumption…..10-15%
VI. Pollution: …………………………………..25-30%
VII. Global Change…………………………….10-15%
(–discussion regarding each of these areas will continue throughout the week–)
2. Laboratory and Field Work continued: Set up/conduct several experiments.
3. Lab and Field equipment: what do you “need”? What would be helpful to have?
4. Lab and Field manuals.
5. Videos, software, websites, periodicals.
6. Continue APES discussion on “Planning, Strategies and Suggestions…”
7. Tour of the Tahoe Center for Environmental Sciences
Day 3
1. Water Quality Testing in Lake Tahoe
2. Course Content Specifics continued.
3. Perform Lab/Field Experiments.
4. Non-text reading assignments/ periodicals, field outings/trips, agencies.
5. Additional resources.
6. Video samples/titles.
7. Exam Handouts: Samples of Ben’s Multiple-Choice Exams, Free Response
Questions and Rubrics.
8. Thoughts on how we might reduce the number of April and/or early May nights that
we wake up at 2:30 a.m. thinking about AP* Environmental Science topics that we
could have spent more time exploring.
Day 4
1. Lab and Field Work continued.
2. The AP* Examination: discussion/comments of Parts I and II of the Exam:
Part I: The Multiple Choice Questions: comments regarding Released Exams.
Part II: The Free Response Questions: an examination of the 2010 FRQs, Rubrics,
and Sample Papers, as well comments on many of the previous 48 FRQS
which have appeared on exams (1998-2009).
3. Grading the AP* Exam; “The Reading”—
4. The “FRQ Assignment”:
5. Strategies to help students succeed throughout the year in your course and on
the AP* Exam in May; student preparation and review suggestions.
6. Discussion of “Post-May AP* Exam” assignment possibilities.
7. Lecture-content specifics continued.
8. A few more good Video titles/samples:
9. Wrap-Up Lab and Field Work
10. Continue course content discussions
11. Continue sharing favorite labs, resources, and ideas
12. Final thoughts and comments on teaching this superb course!
