Scale is a MASSIVE concept for the social sciences. Is phenomenon occurring at local levels? Is it regional? Is it global?

• Do epidemics occurring at a local level have global implications?
• How does war occurring at a regional level effect local economies?
• Do global treaties impact national policies?

In Human Geography, scale is an extremely important concept that requires threading throughout the entire course.

We should always consider scale and challenge students to think about its implications.

As I’m sure you’ve read in the AP Human Geography Course Description circa 2019, one of the 5 skills emphasized is scale.

But I’ll come back to that magnificent grid in just a moment…

The reason that I felt the need to dissect these three terms is because one of them surprisingly bit me in the butt. [Imagining a scale snake now…]

SCALE OF ANALYSIS

I think I’ve done a decent job presenting scale to my students over the last decade, but after the change in the CED and my students’ first FRQ of the year, I had an “O.S.” moment. You know what O.S. means…

Yeah ya do…

The College Board FRQ that I used was on the Green Revolution.

Part A states: “Identify the scales of analysis in the two maps shown.”

Now, because I can’t post the entire question here, or show you the illustrations they used, I will show you similar maps and hopefully you will get my drift…

They provided two stimuli, the first stimulus was of a world map with regions shaded in choropleth style, like this:

The second inset map showed just Southeast Asia, but independent countries were shaded in choropleth style along state borders.

Now, for a part A, I was shocked that so many of my students did not score the point. I would say that 90% zeroed out. Incorrect answers leaned towards:

• “The first map is a regional scale, the second ISN’T….” (this is a no-can-do when compare/contrasting).
• “The first is a small-scale map, while the 2nd is a larger scale map.”
• “The first map is a global map, the second is a regional map.

Ugh, teacher fail.

In fact, the correct answers that College Board is looking for (and how I should have taught it) is:

• The larger map shows a regional scale of analysis.
• The smaller inset map shows a country/national scale of analysis.

And we’ve been practicing this in our FRQs ever since.

You see, the question didn’t ask for the SCALE of the map…(which many of my kids would answer small/medium/large or global/regional/national depending on the scale of the map.

No, no…

The question asked for the “SCALE OF ANALYSIS.”

Basically, it’s asking for:

• At what scale is the map chunking its data.
• At what scale is there data differentiation? (Local? National? Regional? Global?)
• At what scale is the question being answered?

And those are the four scales of analysis that the CB CED provides when asking about SCALE OF ANALYSIS:

• Local
• National
• Regional (Remember that regional could also be “subnational”, however it is ordered in the CED in this way so I will make an educated assumption that they mean global region, i.e. South Asia.)
• Global

SCALE OF INQUIRY

Ok, then. So what is “scale of inquiry?”

First, remind students that inquiry=question.

Basically, if students are asked for the scale of inquiry, they should be able to identify the most appropriate “scale of analysis” map to successfully observe geographic patterns.

Think:

• At what scale of analysis is it best to answer question x?
• Which map is the best scale of analysis to help professionals (or whoever) solve for x?

SCALE

I’ve taught small, medium, and large scale since the beginning. When giving these class notes, I even provide the little strip of scale images you see below for annotation. My students are used to identifying small scale (my global Mercator on the wall) vs. large scale (a local map of a city). It’s something I harp on.

I’ve even made sure that they don’t flip-flop the two and say “large-scale” when talking about a global level, or small-scale when going local.

I’ve been on automatic since this recent CED update, but its good every once in awhile to get a kick in the pants.

I am making an effort to weave “scale of analysis” and “scale of inquiry” continually into my lecture vernacular, and to think about how I frame discussion questions around those terms.

—————

So there you have it, what I’ve made sense of scale of analysis, scale of inquiry, vs. regular old scale.

Circling back to the section of the CED that deals with the skill of “scale,” they want you to Bloom it from skill 5.A to 5.D.

Here are some examples of how we can tackle the topic of employment in China using “scale.” (Just a random topic)

• 5.A: Compare unemployment data for the World, China, and then subnational regions of china. Students could also look at those employed in the primary, secondary, and tertiary sectors of the economy at these three scales.
• 5.B: Have students recognize that the difference in regional unemployment data in China could be correlated to the location of manufacturing districts at the subnational level. Students can also recognize that those involved in the primary sector are located in rural areas, while those in the secondary sector are located in manufacturing districts near export processing zones.
• 5.C: Students can look at other data at various scales such as urban to rural areas, wages, population density, major regional industries, and unemployment rates. Students can see if there might be a correlation.
• 5.D: Have students prepare a proposal to the government of China to suggest ways to curb the growth of urban sprawl or uneven distribution of resources among its citizens. (fictional)

Thank you to those who made it this far 🙂