APES (AP Environmental Science) 2015 Summer Reading List Welcome to APES!
Sustainability of our environment is the key concept in APES. Go outside this summer! Camp, ride your bike,
go to the beach, swim in a lake, hike in the mountains, explore a forest, a desert. Experience nature! Find the
local wildlife around you.
Choose two books (one nonfiction, one fiction) from the list below to read.
You will write two reflective papers or write one reflective paper and create one project geared toward teaching
a 5 year old audience about the book (see below). The reflective paper(s) and/or project is due on the FIRST
day of class in September 2015. Written work will be submitted to Turnitin the first week of school.
Choose books that will interest you!
I. Reflective paper guidelines:
1. Title of book and author.
2. Write a reflective paper regarding the book. The paper must be a minimum of two pages (no longer than three
pages) in length, double spaced and 12 pt. font.
a. What led you to choose the book? Did the book impact you in some way? Relate to
examples in your life.
b. What, if any emotions were evoked during the reading? After the reading?
c. Write summative concluding paragraphs.
d. Would you recommend this book to a classmate? Why or why not?
II. Project Guidelines:
1. Title of book and author.
2. For one of your books, if you choose not to write a reflective paper, you will create a project that summarizes
the book geared toward teaching 5 year olds. Your choices of format are as follows:
a. An illustrated children’s book. You may sketch/draw or take images from the internetcite sources!
b. A power point with images-you must cite sources.
c. An interactive game-board/computer game or you decide.
d. Video a puppet show that you create.
From the list below: Choose ONE (1) fiction and ONE (1) nonfiction book to read and write a reflective
paper for each OR write one reflective paper on one book and do a project on the other book.
Fiction:
Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit
by Daniel Quinn
The narrator of this extraordinary tale is a man in search for truth. He answers an ad in a local newspaper from a teacher
looking for serious pupils, only to find himself alone in an abandoned office with a full-grown gorilla who is nibbling
delicately on a slender branch. "You are the teacher?" he asks incredulously. "I am the teacher," the gorilla replies.
Ishmael is a creature of immense wisdom and he has a story to tell, one that no other human being has ever heard. It is a
story that extends backward and forward over the lifespan of the earth from the birth of time to a future there is still time
save. *Review by Goodreads
Fiction:
The Monkey Wrench Gang
by Edward Abbey
Ed Abbey called The Monkey Wrench Gang, his 1975 novel, a "comic extravaganza." Some readers have remarked that
the book is more a comic book than a real novel, and it's true that reading this incendiary call to protect the American
wilderness requires more than a little of the old willing suspension of disbelief. The story centers on Vietnam veteran
George Washington Hayduke III, who returns to the desert to find his beloved canyons and rivers threatened by industrial
development. On a rafting trip down the Colorado River, Hayduke joins forces with feminist saboteur Bonnie Abbzug,
wilderness guide Seldom Seen Smith, and billboard torcher Doc Sarvis, M.D., and together they wander off to wage war
on the big yellow machines, on dam builders and road builders and strip miners. As they do, his characters voice Abbey's
concerns about wilderness preservation. *Review by Goodreads
Fiction:
The Milagro Beanfield War
by John Nichols
Joe Mondragon, a feisty hustler with a talent for trouble, slammed his battered pickup to a stop, tugged on his gumboots,
and marched into the arid patch of ground. Carefully (and also illegally), he tapped into the main irrigation channel. And
so began-though few knew it at the time-the Milagro beanfield war. But like everything else in the dirt-poor town of
Milagro, it would be a patchwork war, fought more by tactical retreats than by battlefield victories. Gradually, the small
farmers and sheepmen begin to rally to Joe's beanfield as the symbol of their lost rights and their lost lands. And
downstate in the capital, the Anglo water barons and power brokers huddle in urgent conference, intent on destroying that
symbol before it destroys their multimillion-dollar land-development schemes. The tale of Milagro's rising is wildly comic
and lovingly tender, a vivid portrayal of a town that, half-stumbling and partly prodded, gropes its way toward its own
stubborn salvation. *Review by Amazon
Fiction:
Prodigal Summer
by Barbara Kingsolver
Barbara Kingsolver's fifth novel is a hymn to wildness that celebrates the prodigal spirit of human nature, and of nature
itself. It weaves together three stories of human love within a larger tapestry of lives amid the mountains and farms of
southern Appalachia. Over the course of one humid summer, this novel's intriguing protagonists face disparate
predicaments but find connections to one another and to the flora and fauna with which they necessarily share a place.
*Review by Goodreads
Nonfiction:
Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail
By Bill Bryson
For reasons even he didn't understand, Bill Bryson decided in 1996 to walk the 2,100-mile Appalachian trail. Winding
from Georgia to Maine, this uninterrupted 'hiker's highway' sweeps through the heart of some of America's most beautiful
and treacherous terrain. Accompanied by his infamous crony, Stephen Katz, Bryson risks snake bite and hantavirus to
trudge up unforgiving mountains, plod through swollen rivers, and yearn for cream sodas and hot showers. This
amusingly ill-conceived adventure brings Bryson to the height of his comic powers, but his acute eye also observes an
astonishing landscape of silent forests, sparkling lakes, and other national treasures that are often ignored or endangered.
Fresh, illuminating, and uproariously funny, A Walk in the Woods showcases Bill Bryson at his very best. *Review by
Barnes and Noble
Nonfiction:
In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto
By Michael Pollan
What to eat, what not to eat, and how to think about health: a manifesto for our times. "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly
plants”. Humans used to know how to eat well, Pollan argues. But the balanced dietary lessons that were once passed
down through generations have been confused, complicated, and distorted by food industry marketers, nutritional
scientists, and journalists-all of whom have much to gain from our dietary confusion. As a result, we face today a complex
culinary landscape dense with bad advice and foods that are not "real." These "edible foodlike substances" are often
packaged with labels bearing health claims that are typically false or misleading. Indeed, real food is fast disappearing
from the marketplace, to be replaced by "nutrients," and plain old eating by an obsession with nutrition that is,
paradoxically, ruining our health, not to mention our meals. *Review by Book Depository.com
Nonfiction:
Silent Snow: The Slow Poisoning of the Arctic
By Marla Cone
In the tradition of Rachel Carson's landmark 1962 book "Silent Spring", author Marla Cone presents "Silent Snow: The
Slow Poisoning of the Arctic". Cone has been covering environmental affairs for the Los Angeles Times for more than 15
years. She was the recipient of a major grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts to conduct a study of the deteriorating Arctic
environment. This book is the culmination of two years of work. During this time Marla Cone visited five Arctic countries
and met with dozens of scientists from all over the world. What she found out should frighten you and just might break
your heart at the very same time. It is a compelling read.
Did you know that women who reside in remote areas of the Arctic have far higher concentrations of PCBs and mercury
in their breast milk than do women who live in the major urban areas of the United States, Asia and Europe? Were you
aware that entire ecosystems are being wiped out in areas like the Aleutian Islands? And does it disturb you that polar
bears residing near of all places the North Pole are suffering the ill effects of contaminants that were manufactured
thousands upon thousands of miles away? It all sounds quite preposterous! And it goes without saying that this situation is
so unfair to the indigenous peoples who reside in these areas who get little or no direct benefits from the lion's share of
these chemicals and compounds. In "Silent Snow" author Marla Cone does a splendid job in explaining to the reader the
who, what, when. where and why of this tragic situation. She points out that much of the mayhem is being caused by DDT
and PCB's that were released into the environment in the 1960's and and 1970's. *Review by Amazon
Nonfiction:
A Fierce Green Fire
By Philip Shabecoff
Renowned environmental journalist Philip Shabecoff presents the definitive history of American environmentalism from
the earliest days of the republic to the present. He offers a sweeping overview of the contemporary environmental
movement and the political, economic, social and ethical forces that have shaped it. Shabecoff traces the ecological
transformation of North America as a result of the mass migration of Europeans to the New World, showing how the
environmental impulse slowly formed among a growing number of Americans until, by the last third of the 20th Century,
environmentalism emerged as a major social and cultural movement. The efforts of key environmental figures -- among
them Henry David Thoreau, George Perkins Marsh, Theodore Roosevelt, Gifford Pinchot, John Muir, Aldo Leopold,
David Brower, Barry Commoner, and Rachel Carson -- are examined. *Review by Amazon
Nonfiction:
The Sixth Extinction
By Elizabeth Kolbert
Over the last half a billion years, there have been five mass extinctions, when the diversity of life on earth suddenly and
dramatically contracted. Scientists around the world are currently monitoring the sixth extinction, predicted to be the most
devastating extinction event since the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. Two-time winner of the National
Magazine Award and New Yorker writer Elizabeth Kolbert draws on the work of scores of researchers in half a dozen
disciplines, accompanying many of them into the field: geologists who study deep ocean cores, botanists who follow the
tree line as it climbs up the Andes, marine biologists who dive off the Great Barrier Reef. She introduces us to a dozen
species, some already gone, others facing extinction, including the Panamian golden frog, staghorn coral, the great auk,
and the Sumatran rhino. *Review by Amazon
Nonfiction:
Water Follies: Groundwater Pumping and The Fate Of America's Fresh Waters
by Dr. Robert Jerome Glennon J.D. Ph.D
The Santa Cruz River that once flowed through Tucson, Arizona is today a sad mirage of a river. Except for brief periods
following heavy rainfall, it is bone dry. The cottonwood and willow trees that once lined its banks have died, and the
profusion of birds and wildlife recorded by early settlers are nowhere to be seen. The river is dead. What happened?
Where did the water go. As Robert Glennon explains in Water Follies, what killed the Santa Cruz River — and could
devastate other surface waters across the United States — was groundwater pumping. From 1940 to 2000, the volume of
water drawn annually from underground aquifers in Tucson jumped more than six-fold, from 50,000 to 330,000 acre-feet
per year. And Tucson is hardly an exception — similar increases in groundwater pumping have occurred across the
country and around the world. In a striking collection of stories that bring to life the human and natural consequences of
our growing national thirst, Robert Glennon provides an occasionally wry and always fascinating account of groundwater
pumping and the environmental problems it causes. Robert Glennon sketches the culture of water use in the United States,
explaining how and why we are growing increasingly reliant on groundwater. He uses the examples of the Santa Cruz and
San Pedro rivers in Arizona to illustrate the science of hydrology and the legal aspects of water use and conflicts.
Nonfiction:
Gorillas in the Mist
By Diane Fossey
One of the most important books ever written about our connection to the natural world, GORILLAS IN THE MIST is the
riveting account of Dian Fossey's thirteen years in a remote African rain forest with the greatest of the great apes. Fossey's
extraordinary efforts to ensure the future of the rain forest and its remaining mountain gorillas are captured in her own
words and in candid photographs of this fascinating endangered species. Although Fossey's work ended tragically in her
murder, GORILLAS IN THE MIST remains an invaluable testament to one of the longest-running field studies of
primates and reveals her undying passion for her subject. *Review by Amazon