GEOGRAPHY

Ben Carson’s presidential campaign shared a map of the United States in which five New England states were placed in the wrong location. (Washington Post)

Use our resources to . . . Explore! The Power of Maps this Geography Awareness Week.

Teachers, scroll down for a quick list of key resources in our Teachers’ Toolkit.

Discussion Ideas

• What states were misrepresented in the disputed map? What was wrong with the way they were mapped? Use our simple 1-Page map of the U.S. for some help.
  • “Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine are moved northeast by about 150 miles or so.”
  • “Vermont and New York [lacking the boundary states of New Hampshire (Vermont) and Massachusetts and Connecticut (New York)] now have hundreds of miles of new beachfront property.”
  • “Massachusetts [north of Vermont in the map] shares a border with Canada.”
  • “Maine [pushed north into Canada] straddles the Gulf of Saint Lawrence.”
  • “Virginia’s portion of the Delmarva Peninsula is colored red to match Maryland.”

 

• The Washington Post article assures the campaign that it has “plenty of company when it comes to geography troubles.” (Learn more about that here.) Here are some common cartographic conundrums:
  • “A study last year found that a majority of Americans couldn’t place Ukraine on a map.” Can you?
  • “A 2006 survey commissioned by National Geographic found that six in 10 young Americans couldn’t find Iraq on a map of the Middle East.” Can you?
  • “[The same survey found] half [of young American surveyed] couldn’t place New York on a map of the United States.” Can you?

 

• We all make mistakes—and the Carson campaign fixed theirs right away. Sometimes, we map things that don’t exist, or confuse things that do. Can you spot what’s wrong in each of these mapping muddles?
  • Hong Kong?
  • New York?
  • Egypt?
  • Nigeria?
  • Argentina?
  • Queensland?

 

TEACHERS TOOLKIT

Washington Post: Ben Carson’s campaign made a U.S. map and put a bunch of states in the wrong place

Nat Geo: Explore! The Power of Maps!

Nat Geo: Celebrate Geography Awareness Week

Nat Geo: 1-Page Maps

Nat Geo: MapMaker Interactive

Nat Geo: Why are U.S. Students Bad at Geography?

Nat Geo: The Road Map Project

Nat Geo: Scientist Unravels Mystery of Ghostly Sandy Island

Nat Geo: Colombians are Tired of People Misspelling their Country’s Name