On March 23, College Board released a statement that removed AP Environmental Science (APES) as a course. They disclosed that there was “no environment left to study” and that APES would stop being offered as a course for the 2025-2026 school year.
The decision came after experts determined that the subject of the course is now unusable due to years of deforestation, pollution, and record-breaking global temperatures. The College Board had contemplated removing the course for some time before making what was ultimately a unanimous decision. Additionally, according to College Board Flora Fauna, teachers had complained that the curriculum was becoming irrelevant.
“Everything we have been putting in our curriculum is useless,” Fauna said. “I’m not the only one who thinks this. Countless teachers have come to me complaining that they couldn’t do their labs and that the examples they used in teaching were useless. There are no forests left to model our curriculum, the oceans are 90% microplastics, and a school reported that their lab the previous year on air quality was canceled because students couldn’t see through the smog,” Fauna said.
Students at CVHS did not have many opinions about the decision. 99% of students taking APES at CVHS saw this coming, as seen in a poll taken of 200 students. According to the APES teacher, students would place bets on how long it would take for the course to be removed.
“Sometimes, I would even join them. I gave up on trying to conjure material for my students to study this year. It felt like there was no use in half the things I was teaching them anyway,” CVHS APES teacher Sarah Collins commented.
CVHS teachers long knew this course might be removed. They would at times even discuss it with their students, who felt the repercussions of the degrading environment in their classes.
“Some of the things that we were taught didn’t even make sense, we spent so much time learning about the importance of biodiversity, but by the second semester the species we were learning about in another course I’m taking, AP Biology, were all extinct,” CVHS senior and APES student Jake Mitchell said.
Despite the outdated curriculum, College Board attempted to make the course more accurate to the current climate situation. According to Fauna, they had been brainstorming ways to change their units to be more accurate to the present climate situation, or things that could be taken out of the curriculum.
“Our entire Unit 5 is based on land and water Use. How are we supposed to teach that when all inhabitable land is occupied by urban cities or power plants, and there’s almost no bodies of fresh water anymore?” Fauna continued.
This is not the only unit that is outdated. According to another poll of 178 students, 98% of students felt as if more than half of the things they were taught in APES did not apply to the climate. Some students suggested replacing the course with a new, more realistic one, like AP Environmental Survival, AP Climate Change, or AP Extinction.
College Board has not ruled out reintroducing the course if environmental conditions improve, though experts say that is unlikely. In the meantime, APES teachers are encouraged to transition into other science subjects, such as AP Chemistry, which remains relevant since humans still need to understand the chemicals currently polluting their drinking water. As for students, the news leaves them wondering what’s next.
“At this point, I might just take AP Physics instead. At least gravity still works. For now,” Lution said.
This story is satire.
