In his inaugural column in the spring edition of ESRI’s ArcNews publication, vice president for National Geographic Education Danny Edelson called on GIS professionals to lead the charge in an ambitious campaign for geographic education reform, specifying the goal of achieving 80% geo-literacy among 18-year-olds in the U.S. by 2020.
In the second, summer installment of “Geo Learning,” Edelson provides further details on what he means by “geo-literacy” and offers suggestions for how GIS practitioners and other geographic experts can get involved, ranging from personal to political to educational to financial (recall: 4 is a much more important number than 3 in geography!)
Check out Danny’s column to learn how you can start turning your geo-know-how into geo-action–NOW!
We agree, and thank you! We’ll look into the Captcha issue…
I’m all for anything that promotes the understanding of geography.
Beyond the “Capitals of” and “Remarkable Pieces of Geographic Trivia”, it’s important for people to understand the natural processes that shape the environment, and then to be able to understand how human actions affect those processes.
Geography is one of the most dynamic and important fields of study there is, but too many people think back to elementary school days and wrongly conclude that there’s nothing more to it than labelling maps.
Bravo to this initiative and any more like it.
(BTW Strangely, I can see the Captcha code but I cannot see a box in which to type it. I hope I don’t have to abandon this post. Ah, there it is, a very faint box below the Captcha code box. The near-invisibility of the “type in” box might be hindering others from posting comments.)