Geography Policy Forum

Source: Washington Post blog The Monkey Cage

This evening's Policy Forum at NERC 45 began with a consideration of this map. It represents the answers given by two thousand adults in the United States when they were asked to locate Ukraine on a map of the world. Although the most common answers are actually in Ukraine and the most common wrong answers are in Eastern Europe, the MCSS participants were astonished spatial distribution.

Not only are large errors -- averaging 1800 miles -- common, but as reported today on the Washington Post blog, the greater the error, the greater the likelihood that a survey participant favors military intervention. That is, Americans are most likely to support a war in a place whose location they do not know.

This was an excellent point of departure for the policy forum on geography education that was organized as part of the Northeast Regional Conference (NERC 45) of the National Council on Social Studies. After discussing some of the compelling reasons to improve geographic literacy -- both for employment and for effective civic participation -- the discussion turned to ways to promote geography on several tracks. The first of these is the continued expansion of public outreach programs such as EarthView and Family Geography Nights. Integration of these tools into professional development programs for teachers also has great potential to expand the reach of geography both in Massachusetts and throughout New England.

Finally, the group discussed ways to encourage Massachusetts legislators to approve Senate Bill 200, a no-cost, non-partisan bill that would recognize the importance of geography education and establish a commission to investigate ways to provide for its sustained improvement.