It’s still important to learn old school geography despite students having easy access to GPS-based directions, according to a K-12 Dive article.
The ease of GPS makes it more important for students to know how to read maps and understand their symbology, and students also must know how to make connections between the digital world and the real world, says Michael Mewborne, director of the South Carolina Geographic Alliance and board secretary for the National Council for Geographic Education (NCGE).
Why geography matters:
1) Students who can read maps well can better understand the meaning of county-by-county election results.
2) Geography education engages students in environmental issues. “If I don’t explore the urban or suburban landscape near where I live, that makes it much more difficult for me to care what happens to it,” Mewborne says.
3) A “mental map” is crucial to understand how a student’s local world connects to the rest of the planet, says Thomas Herman, executive director of NCGE
4) Geography can be a bridge to learning other topics. “It’s a connective tissue,” Herman says. “Civics education is one area of connection. “If you want students to be connected to the nation, be responsible, they need to know the territory, and know what’s inside the territory and what’s outside,” he says.
“How do I learn to reconnect to the physical world around me, whether natural and environmental, or whether the human world through political boundaries, urban systems and economic connections?” asks Mewborne,
Here’s how to more effectively teach geography:
- Go beyond putting a blank map of the U.S. on the wall and asking students to point to the state of Georgia, Mewborne suggests. Teachers should delve into what different states and other locations are best known for, such as asking which state produces the most pecans (hint: Georgia).
- Give kids a larger, inquiry-based system to help them move into spatial thinking. “That is a much more effective way to teach geographic skills like not only how to read maps but how to place information on maps,” he says.
- Tap into students’ curiosity and develop an inquiry-based approach, Herman says.
“We shouldn’t teach it just through maps and at a scale bigger than students see,” he explains. “They do see their neighborhood, and the park they go to. We should make use of that and help teachers do that. …
- Geography can be taught out in the field; it can be a way to counterbalance mapping gone digital on screens, Herman says.
K-12 Dive
