Geographic education

[kmusser]

The deplorable state of American's geographic knowledge is well known. At the conference Gil Grosvenor's plea was for us to do something about it personally. To illustrate the power of doing so he brought out a group of high school kids who had been inspired by one science teacher who had gone to one National Geographic class and their work in mapping caves has gone in to Glacier National Park's conservation plan.

So, I know a bunch of you have small children now, I'd strongly encourage you to supplement our schools non-existent geography education. To that end if you'd like me to visit and do an occasional geography class for the kids I'd be glad to do so (or maybe even get some of them together - we could do a field trip).

Some resources:
National Geographic education resources including teaching plans: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/
Minnesota Alliance for Geographic Education:
http://www.macalester.edu/geography/mage/resources/index.htm#publications

Comments

[geminigirl]

It's a lovely offer to make, to visit and do an occasional lesson, and I hope the parents close to you take up that offer. We're a bit far for that (in Florida) and our kids are a bit young-my oldest is two, but I'd be interested in how you suggest teaching it/including it in what we do.

[kmusser]

Yes, that offer is intended for the DC/Baltimore folks :-) For what I'd do, I'd need to go through those links myself and probably run through some of the National Geographic lessons. Though one thought of that I might start out with is a "how to read a map" which I'd teach by having them make one or more, starting with a map of their own house, then perhaps of their/neighboring streets - that probably could be done quite young, not 2 granted, but I suspect at 4 or 5 they'd get it.

[toothlesshag.livejournal.com]

Karl, this is great. If I can find a way to connect this to the 5th grade curriculum I have to learn next year, I will.

[tchwrtr.livejournal.com]

Yes, at four or five they will.

My Boy loves maps, and can read them. We reference them in the mall, in the zoo, whenever there is a map that we can look at, we do.

Curious George on PBS sparked this interest of his--the good little monkey goes to the zoo, gets locked in at closing time, releases (some of) the animals while looking for the exit, and has to put them back. A LOT of what makes maps cool is explored in this episode. Highly recommend it.

So, there's a globe in his room, and we have had a map of the US on the Boy's wall, and he can identify where CA friends live, where Great Grandmama lives, and where we live. He also has a kid's road atlas waiting for that next long trip, when we'll mark it up.

What we have not done yet is draw our own map. That's a great idea.

[ladylyonesse.livejournal.com]

Dude. This sounds so cool. When Sophie starts this year I will bring it up to her teacher and see if we can make that go.

[kmusser]

Yay, you're awesome!

[kmusser]

Very cool, is good when they're curious, makes teaching so much easier :-)