Happy Geography Awareness Week. Geography Awareness Week 2007 runs from Sunday, November 11 through Saturday, November 17. This week's theme is Asia.
In honor of Geography Awareness Week, I have written a column about the importance of place name memorization and have issued a call to action for everyone to develop a foundation of geographic knowledge this year. Read my column and find out what I insist every geographically literate adult know. You may also want to read about the positive revival of geographic education.
Please help me to spread the world about this call to action by sharing my article with friends and colleagues. You can use the "Email to a friend" link on any article on my site to share anything here.
What are your thoughts about my "call to action" and about Geography Awareness Week? Click "comments" below to add your voice!
Comments
First, I appreciate all the great geo info that you provide to us via the web. I am in total agreement with your column. Normally I would not want my children memorizing dates, times & places. I think that learning is far more than just these types of facts. However – When it comes to geo, I think we need to know where the places are on the globe in order to connect the 5 themes of geography together. Geography is definitely more than places on the map, but that is a starting point that we can build on later. I think schools have it backwards. We spend countless hours & resources on math, english and science. We are sadly overlooking the value of geography in the schools. Geography is what will make good citizens, informed people, and help to make this world a better place. I certainly don’t want to undervalue the other subjects either, but geo is in danger of being extinct!
Michelle
Home School Mom
of a Geo Bee Champ
Hi Matt,
I loudly and resolutely echo your sentiments, and Michelle’s, about the value of learning place names. How can we attempt to make sense of any of the world’s current events and contemporary dynamics if we don’t have even a basic knowledge of physical, cultural, and historical connections? This starts with knowing where places are–toponyms are the building blocks of geography. But more than the 1,2,3′s, they are like multiplication tables in that, as you mention, learning the individual countries and physical features automatically leads to a deeper understanding of higher-order interactions among people and places.
And this “higher-order” understanding is similarly critical. This Geography Awareness Week, My Wonderful World is attempting to integrate both types of learning with geo-referenced, KML tours and quizzes of Asia. These fun, interactive activities utilize National Geographic images and content. We hope you’ll encourage your readers to learn about Asia this Geography Awareness Week.
Thanks again for all you do to promote Geography!
I’m a high school student in Texas, and I just wanted to give a shout out to my amazing geography teacher.
I can proudly say that I know every country on the map – and I strongly agree that the foundation of truly understanding and applying the geographic (be it political, economical, etc.) and demographic priciples is knowing simply what countries are where. And not just North America.
Happy Geography Awareness!
A joke for you peoples! What do you call it when instead of raining cats and dogs, it rains chickens, ducks and turkeys? Fowl Weather!
___________________________
vigara