Fusion Global Academy - AP Course Catalog

COURSE CATALOG ADVANCED PLACEMENT

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AP Art History

Students will explore the interconnections between art, culture, and historical context using critical analysis through the critical lenses of artistic expression, cultural awareness, and purpose. Using a defined art historical skill set and reflective learning, students will analyze relationships across cultures with a global lens. The examination of how people have responded to and communicated their experiences through art will enable students to think conceptually about art ranging from prehistoric to contemporary. Students will be active participants, engaging with art and its context as they read, research, and collaborate to learn about art, artists, art-making, and responses to and interpretations of art.

800 | LENGTH: 2 terms

AP Biology

This course is designed to provide a college-level experience and prepare students for the AP exam. Students will be provided with a foundation for developing an understanding for biological concepts through scientific inquiry, investigations, interactive experiences, higherorder thinking, real-world applications, writing analytical essays, statistical analysis, interpreting and collecting data. The key big ideas of the AP Biology course are system interactions, evolution, energetics, information storage, and transmission. Students will participate in a variety of engaging activities that enhance their mastery of biology concepts.

801 | LENGTH: 2 terms

AP Calculus AB

AP Calculus AB is designed to be the equivalent of a first-term college calculus course devoted to topics in differential and integral calculus. The course focuses on students’ understanding of calculus concepts and provides experience with methods and applications. Through the use of big ideas of calculus (e.g., modeling change, approximation and limits, and analysis of functions), each course becomes a cohesive whole, rather than a collection of unrelated topics. Both AP Calculus courses require students to use definitions and theorems to build arguments and justify conclusions. The courses feature a multi-representational approach to calculus, with concepts, results, and problems expressed graphically, numerically, analytically, and verbally. Exploring connections among these representations builds an understanding of how calculus applies limits to develop important ideas, definitions, formulas, and theorems. A sustained emphasis on clear communication of methods, reasoning, justifications, and conclusions is essential.

802 | LENGTH: 2 terms | PREREQ: Pre-Calculus

AP Calculus BC

AP Calculus BC is designed to be the equivalent to both first and second-term college calculus courses. AP Calculus BC applies the content and skills learned in AP Calculus AB to parametrically defined curves, polar curves, and vector-valued functions; develops additional integration techniques and applications; and introduces the topics of sequences and series.

The course focuses on students’ understanding of calculus concepts and provides experience with methods and applications. Through the use of big ideas of calculus (e.g., modeling change, approximation and limits, and analysis of functions), each course becomes a cohesive whole, rather than a collection of unrelated topics. Both AP Calculus courses require

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students to use definitions and theorems to build arguments and justify conclusions. The courses feature a multi-representational approach to calculus, with concepts, results, and problems expressed graphically, numerically, analytically, and verbally. Exploring connections among these representations builds an understanding of how calculus applies limits to develop important ideas, definitions, formulas, and theorems. A sustained emphasis on clear communication of methods, reasoning, justifications, and conclusions is essential.

803 | LENGTH: 2 terms

AP Computer Science

The AP Computer Science A course is equivalent to the first term of a college-level computer science course. The course involves developing the skills to write programs or part of programs to correctly solve specific problems. AP® Computer Science A also emphasizes the design issues that make programs understandable, adaptable, and when appropriate, reusable. At the same time, the development of useful computer programs and classes is used as a context for introducing other important concepts in computer science, including the development and analysis of algorithms, the development and use of fundamental data structures, and the study of standard algorithms and typical applications. In addition, an understanding of the basic hardware and software components of computer systems and the responsible use of these systems are integral parts of the course.

804 | LENGTH: 2 terms

AP English Language and Composition

This course provides high school students with college-level instruction in analyzing and writing various texts. The course covers topics in language and rhetoric as well as expository and persuasive writing. Students become skilled readers of prose written in various periods, disciplines, and rhetorical contexts. The study of texts from both the reader and writer perspectives develops an understanding of the function, effect, and purpose behind the choices writers make, leading students to improve their own composition skills. This course will effectively prepare students for the AP Exam and learning beyond the exam by enabling them to read, analyze, and write about complex texts.

805 | LENGTH: 2 terms

AP English Literature and Composition

This course provides high school students with college-level instruction in active, close reading and analysis of imaginative literature. Through the close reading of carefully selected works of literary merit, students learn to consider how a work’s style, figurative language, theme, and other literary elements contribute to its cultural significance. The approach to analyzing prose and poetry allows students to establish connections, make observations about textual details, and sharpen their understanding of these nuances through their own writing. This course will effectively prepare students for the AP Exam and learning beyond the exam by enabling them to read, analyze, and write about complex texts.

806 | LENGTH: 2 terms

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AP Environmental Science

With the current changes in global climate, rising sea levels, and warming oceans, it is important for students to discover the state of Earth’s systems and the consequences of human activities. AP Environmental Science provides students with a global view of their world and their role in it. It examines the scientific principles and concepts required to understand the interrelationships between ocean, land, and atmosphere that guide the natural world and allow Earth to be a planet suitable for life. Laboratory activities within the course support their learning of these relationships through reflective, hands-on, or virtual experiences. In addition, students identify and analyze environmental problems that are natural and humanmade, determining their own ecological footprint in the world to discover how their activities affect the world around them. They evaluate the relative risks associated with environmental problems and examine alternative solutions, such as clean energy, sustainable practices, and conservation, for resolving or preventing future environmental problems.

807 | LENGTH: 2 terms

AP Human Geography

In this AP course, students are introduced to human geography or cultural geography. The content is organized around the discipline’s main subfields: economic geography, cultural geography, political geography, and urban geography. The approach is spatial and problemoriented. Case studies are drawn from all world regions, with an emphasis on understanding the world in which we live today. Historical information serves to enrich analysis of the impacts of phenomena such as globalization, colonialism, and human-environment relationships on places, regions, cultural landscapes, and patterns of interaction. Students also learn about the methods and tools geographers use in their research and applications. The goal for the course is for students to become more geo-literate, more engaged in contemporary global issues, and more informed about multicultural viewpoints. Students will see geography as a discipline relevant to the world in which they live; as a source of ideas for identifying, clarifying, and solving problems at various scales; and as a key component of building global citizenship and environmental stewardship.

808 | LENGTH: 2 terms

AP Macroeconomics

In this AP course, students establish the fundamentals of economics, with a survey of scarcity, opportunity cost, supply, demand, and market equilibrium. They then zoom out to the largest scale of economic analysis, learning the indicators of whole countries’ economic health, specifically gross domestic product, unemployment, and price level. With that foundation, the rest of the course looks at fiscal and monetary policies, their consequences, and the basics of international trade and the foreign exchange market. Students will gain a much deeper understanding of the world around them, the roles that government and banks play in an economy, and the economic outcomes generated by their policy decisions.

809 | LENGTH: 1 term

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AP Microeconomics

In this course, students explore the power of marginal thinking and apply it to common decisions that individuals and business firms encounter each day. Students examine, interpret, analyze, and model key microeconomics concepts and processes, from the shifting supply and demand for familiar products to the model of the labor market and how wages are determined.

810 | LENGTH: 1 term

AP Psychology

In this AP course, students immerse themselves in the scientific study of human behavior and cognition. Learn about notable figures and psychological studies. Investigate scientific methods and ethical considerations related to human and animal research. In this college-level course, you will learn about and apply important terms, concepts, and phenomena associated with each major area of psychology and enhance your critical thinking skills. Topics include the biological bases of psychology, sensation and perception, learning, cognition, development, motivation, emotion, personality, psychological disorders, and social psychology.

811 | LENGTH: 2 terms

AP Statistics

AP Statistics is an introductory college-level statistics course that introduces students to the major concepts and tools for collecting, analyzing, and drawing conclusions from data.

Students cultivate their understanding of statistics using technology, investigations, problemsolving, and writing as they explore concepts like variation and distribution; patterns and uncertainty; and data-based predictions, decisions, and conclusions.

812 | LENGTH: 2 terms | PREREQ: Algebra 2

AP United States Government and Politics

In this AP course, students investigate key political concepts, ideas, institutions, policies, interactions, roles, and behaviors that characterize the constitutional system and political culture of the United States. Students will study the structure of the Constitution throughout the course, as well as its implications for the functioning of government today. Other foundational documents, landmark Supreme Court cases, and opportunities for research and civic action are key elements in this rich course that prepares.

813 | LENGTH: 1 term

AP United States History

In this AP course, students will develop and use historical thinking skills (chronological reasoning, comparison and contextualization, crafting historical arguments from historical evidence, and historical interpretation and synthesis) to examine the history of the United States from 1491 to the present. Students will learn through active participation as they analyze sources and collaborate to gain a conceptual understanding of U.S. history. The course is structured around nine time periods outlined within the College Board Advanced Placement United States History Framework. Each time period is divided into key concepts meant to contextualize history and show continuity and well as change over time. The intention is for students to explore history, establishing economic, political, and social patterns.

814 | LENGTH: 2 terms

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