Taking the Kids™

Learning Some Geography

Grab a U.S. map and the kids. Now where’s the Pacific Ocean?

Congratulate them – and yourselves – if your darlings can locate that great body of blue. One third of the 18-24-year-olds surveyed worldwide for a National Geographic-Roper Global Geographic Literacy Survey had no clue, though the Pacific does cover a third of the Earth. The young Americans, by the way, scored next to last in geography smarts among those surveyed in nine countries.

That poll was done a couple of years ago, but experts don’t think anything has changed. In fact, they worry that kids now may be even more geographically illiterate with schools forsaking geography lessons to prepare for standardized reading and math tests, says Dr. Michal LeVasseur, the executive director of the National Council for Geographic Education and a professor at Jacksonville State University in Alabama.

You can take your kids “exploring” right in the backyard or on the front stoop. How? Here are some ideas from Gwen Faulkner, the National Geographic Society’s Teacher in Residence who taught for more than 20 years in Washington, D.C., public schools:

• Take half an hour and have the kids write down everything they see in your backyard or from your city street corner. You do it, too!
• Close your eyes and listen. What do you hear? Birds or sirens? Car horns or babies crying?
• Take out a map and your vacation snapshots. Match the places on the map with the pictures you took. Talk to the kids about how those places are different from where you live.
• Ask relatives or someone new to your community to talk about where they came from and how their life changed in this new place.
• Watch the news with the kids. Point out the places being discussed on a map or globe. Talk about why the newscasters are talking about that part of the country or the world. How does what’s happening there impact us?

Encourage the kids to see how hurricanes Katrina or Rita – even if the Gulf Coast is hundreds or thousands of miles away – have impacted you.

“This will lead kids to think about things they haven’t before,” suggests Dr. LeVasseur. “Children are interested and naturally curious if they’re given the opportunity.”

Since the late 1980s, The National Geographic Society has spent more than $100 million to improve geographic knowledge inside and outside the classroom. Some five million youngsters now participate in the National Geographic Bee, for example. This fall, there’s also a new web site and online community for teachers, www.ngsednet.org, complete with virtual teacher workshops, Q&A sessions with experts, and suggestions to help teaching about subjects from hurricanes to paleontology to Africa.

An international coalition of policy-makers, educators and business leaders are working on strategies to combat geography ignorance and some new initiatives are expected in the coming months. Meanwhile, we can all do our part. Now where’s that map?

© Copyright Eileen Ogintz 2005

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