AP Human Geography classes create and compete in a mock The Amazing Race
While preparing to win the Amazing Race, a student stands on a handmade world map.
May 28, 2022
As an activity after finals and AP testing, AP human geography students will race for first place by going through mental and physical challenges in an Amazing Race loosely based on the material they spent all year learning.
“I think the Amazing Race is a fun challenge because it gives us a break from studying in the classroom. We get to review our knowledge of human geography and play games with it and it’s really fun because we get to be outside,” said Achint Kaur (‘23).
The Amazing Race project was inspired by the TV show by the same name, where competitors go around the world hoping to secure the prize of one million dollars cash. The tensions for the in-class version are just as high.
“The only downside of this game is that there’s too much running around in the hot weather but thankfully my team has this guy that does track and field who took off his shoes and sprinted barefoot across the school,” said Louisa Landhuis (‘23).
The class was divided into groups, and challenges were made by each group with the rest of the class taking turns participating in events. Inspiration for challenges came from the real show.
“I haven’t really tried the past couple days but I decided to try today, and it was pretty fun when I did. We got to go through a bunch of different courses about AP Human geography. This was just an end of the year type of thing to fill time because we’re already done with the class,” said EJ Thomsen (‘22).
Some physical class challenges included hopscotch, egg races, and building a house out of popsicle sticks. Mental games included identifying a language, matching crops to a region, and other content related obstacles.
“This project helped me apply my learnings in a really fun and interactive way. Shout out to Mrs. Zuanich and her TA for making the map!” said Trisha Sukale (‘22).
Jennifer Zuanich, the AP Human Geography teacher, as well as her students love doing this project at the end of the year. As per tradition, a door mat was painted with the countries of the world for the winners to jump to when they finished the race.
