Summary
This session will provide participants with practical, engaging activities about Taiwan for the geography classroom. Taiwan is an island that mixes unique indigenous cultures with Chinese, Japanese, European, and American influences; it provides an interesting and topical area of study for human and physical geography students. The participants on this panel spent two weeks in the summer of 2025 on a study tour of Taiwan, and are eager to share the curriculum they developed with other teachers. The session will conclude with a discussion of Taiwan’s present and near future.
Session Focus
APHG | Curriculum and Instruction | Taiwan and East Asia
Conference Room
Winnebago
Meet the Presenters
Alex Northrup teaches AP Human Geography, AP Environmental Science, AP World History: Modern and more at Foxcroft School, an all-girls high school in Middleburg, Virginia, where he is the Director of the Innovation Lab. He is a table leader for the AP Human Geography reading and an instructor for Chesapeake Bay Climate Institute. He recently returned from a study tour in Taiwan sponsored by the National Consortium for Teaching about Asia.
Dawn Schmidt teaches in Tempe, Arizona at Corona del Sol High School. This is year 28 for her and she has been in the same district for her entire career. Schmidt is currently teaching at the same school she attended for high school. This year she is teaching World Geography and Honors World Geography to 9th graders, AP Human Geography, an elective for 10th-12th graders, and Honors United States History to 11th graders.
Schmidt is a former board member of the Arizona Council for Social Studies for six years, and currently, a Teacher Consultant for the Arizona Geographic Alliance as well as a member of NCGE. She was awarded the NCGE K-12 Distinguished Teaching Award in 2021, the Isidore Starr Outstanding Social Studies Teacher by ACSS in 2016, and the Flinn Foundation Outstanding Teacher Award in 2013 and 2008. Schmidt had the opportunity to participate in educational study tours in Japan, Tajikistan, Honduras, Germany, and the United Arab Emirates. She currently serves as a co-liaison for the Rio Salado College dual enrollment program at her school.
