Geography Awareness Week

In honor of the upcoming Geography Awareness Week (November 15-21), I though I'd share the very geographic activities of my week and relate them to geographic education. A little different but hopefully we'll learn from it.

Internships

I'm a huge fan of internships for college students. In fact, in an effort to gain more GIS experience, I recently applied for a GIS internship with the City of Santa Clarita. Prior to the interview, I wanted to brush up on my ArcView skills so I used the book Getting to Know ArcView GIS and its attached tutorial copy of ArcView. I was most impressed. The book is quite informative and the functional program of ArcView was excellent. If you need to learn or to brush up on ArcView, I highly recommend this book. Anyway, I got the internship and began producing maps and working with data for the city from ArcView. I'm working 20 hours a week and am really learning a lot!

I truly think internships during college are essential. Since GIS is a hot career for many geography students right now, learn ArcView through classes or on your own and then volunteer your time. If you're interested in GIS or another area of geography then contact your college's internship center or agencies and businesses directly to ask about internships. The experience will be invaluable!

Geography Competition

On Saturday, November 7, I visited the coastal city of Oxnard for the tenth annual Geography Competition for Ventura County high school students. There were about 20 teams from half-a-dozen schools that competed. The competition was divided into two parts - a written test for all participants and a team competition. The written test was a fifty question multiple choice geography test and winners were selected by the number they get right. The top score ended up being 40 out of 50. There were some tough questions and these were some bright kids!

The second round was the team competition. Each team sat at a table in the Oxnard College gymnasium and an announcer read all the teams a question. The teams had 30 seconds to discuss and decide upon an answer and write it down on a pad of paper. Once the buzzer sounded, they had to hold up their answer for review by the judges. I was amazed at the students' knowledge of world geography. The first place team walked away not only with trophies but also a helicopter ride for the entire team. Annually, a local helicopter pilot picks up the winning team from the football field of their school, during the school day, and flies them around the city.

The competition was fun and a great success. It's an excellent example of what can be done locally by collaborating between just a few schools and the community.

Geography Awareness Week

Next week, November 15-21, is Geography Awareness Week. This year's theme is "People, Places, and Patterns: Geography Puts the Pieces the Pieces Together." Teachers across the U.S. have purchased (this year's packets were $5) and received packets containing a activity and idea book for teachers, posters for the classroom, and a CD-ROM that includes a GIS program. These materials should help to bring geographic education into the classroom for at least a week, but how is geography moving forward into the classroom year-round?

As I mentioned in last year's roundup of geographic education, the College Board is planning on adding human geography to its slate of thirty Advanced Placement (AP) examinations for high school students. Successfully passing an AP test provides a high school student with college credit for units completed. Many high schools offer year-long AP courses to instruct students in the subject area and to prepare them for the test. Most of these courses provide high school students with a taste of things to come in college - the classes are filled with a great deal of reading as well as lectures.

While AP Geography will certainly help to advance recognition of geography, will it really be implemented on a wide scale? A comment by Dr. Alexander Murphy, chair of the AP Geography Development Committee, in the May/June issue of the Journal of Geography was quite optimistic. However, most high schools are only able to offer a handful of AP-level courses and those tend to be the key topics such as calculus, English, chemistry, and foreign languages. Unfortunately, I doubt many schools will be able to offer an AP Geography course not only due to funding problems but because students have so little time in their schedules. The brightest and best students are already overworked with basic AP courses and extracurricular activities to attempt to get the edge for the best schools. However, the AP Geography test is a major step in the right direction and one which should increase interest in geography.

Geography is definitely making a comeback and we all need to do our best to encourage and foster its growth - at all levels of education. I'll hope for the best with the first AP examinations in geography, still slated for the 2000-2001 academic year.

Finally!

My publisher informed my early last week that my book was being shipped. Fortunately, just in time for the Geography Competition in Oxnard, I received a copy of my book to give away as a door prize to one of the teachers who helped prepare their teams for the competition. I was glad that the book arrived Friday and I was able to give it away on Saturday to a super teacher!

Anyway, by the time you read (or imminently thereafter) this my book, The Handy Geography Answer Book should be available in book stores. It's already available through Amazon.com!

Visit my Geographic Education and Teaching Geography and my Lesson Plans and Educational Activities categories of Net Links for more information about geographic education.

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