Helping Your Child Learn Geography

Help ing Your Child Lear n e11graphy Helping Your Child Learn Geography Prepared by Carol Sue Frombolutl Information Services Office of Educational Research and Improvement U.S. Department of Education Published in cooperation with the Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey u.s. Department of Education Office of Educational Research and Improvement U.S. Department of Education Lauro F. Cavazos Secretary Office of Educational Research and Improvement Christopher T. Cross Assistant Secretary Information Services Sharon Kinney Horn Director This booklet is in the public domain. Authorization to reproduce it in whole or in part for educational purposes is granted. The contents of this booklet were prepared by the Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education. Development of materials in this booklet by the U.S. Department of Education should not be construed or interpreted as an endorsement by the Department of any private organization or business listed herein. February 1990 For each additional copy of Helping Your Child Learn Geography, send your name, address and 50 cents to: Geography Consumer Information Center Pueblo, co 81009. Ill Foreword emember thumbing through an atlas or encyclopedia as a child, imagining yourself as a world traveler on a safari in Africa, or boating up the Mississippi River, climbing the peaks of the Himalayas, visiting ancient cathedrals and castles of Europe, the Great Wall of China? We do. The world seemed full offaraway, exotic, and wonderful places that we wanted to know more about. Today, we would like to believe that youngsters are growing up similarly inquisitive about the world. Perhaps they are, but recent studies and reports indicate that, if such imaginings are stirring in our youngsters, they're not being translated into knowledge. Not that there ever was a "golden age" when all our young and all our citizens were conversant about the peoples and places of the globe. Still, there is considerable evidence that such knowledge among young Americans has dipped to an alarming low. Last year, a nine-nation survey found that one in five young Americans (18- to 24-year-olds) could not locate the United States on an outline map of the world. Young Am.e ricans knew measurably less geography than Americans 25 years of age and over. Only in the United States did 18- to 24-year-olds know less than people 55 years old and over; in all eight other nations, young adults knew more than the older ones. No less di.s turbing was the fact that our young adults, when compared with young adults in other countries, came in last place in a 1980 Gallup Poll. Our 18- to 24-year-olds knew less about geography than their age-mates in every other participating nation. But it shouldn't surprise us. Youngsters in other countries study more geography. In England, Canada, and the Soviet Union, geography is considered one of the basic academic subjects and is required of most secondary students; in the United States, only one in seven students takes a high school geography course. You'd think that our students learn at least some geography, though, in their world history classes. Those T h 1.e One Ill . lV who take world history probably do. But that's only 44 percent of our high school graduates. More than half of our high school students are graduating without studying world history. Ifyoungsters are to acquire an appreciation of geography and ultimately learn to think geographically, parents and communities must insist that local schools restore it to prominence in the curriculum. They should insist that geography be studied and learned, in one form or another, through several years of the primary and secondary curriculum. Learning should not be restricted to the classroom. Parents