Geography Education: Key to Understanding and Saving the Environment: An Editorial

Abstract

With the national celebration of Earth Day 1990 and the recent profusion of save-the-earth books, T-shirts, and bumper stickers, it would seem that environmental awareness in the United States is at an all-time high. This may be the case, and I find the trend encouraging. But for several years, I have become increasingly troubled about how little we Americans, particularly our young people, actually know about the world around us, as concerned as we are about its future. Recent surveys have confirmed my worst suspicions. A study released this year by the National Assessment of Educational Progress--the nation's report card-has revealed disturbing gaps in the geographic knowledge of American high school seniors. In that study, large numbers of students could not locate major countries, cities, and landmarks on a map-a skill we all associate with geography. But what is worse, many also lacked a more important, and less recognized, geographic skill: understanding how human activity and the environment affect each other. For example, only 47 percent of the students tested could identify even one cause of the greenhouse effect, and 59 percent could not recognize a single effect of thermonuclear war on the environment. These are geographic questions, and the next generation is unprepared to deal with them, as well as a host of other environmental issues that are incomprehensible without geography. But our students are not alone in their ignorance. A 1988-1989 international Gallup survey of adults commissioned by the National Geographic Society revealed that one in seven Americans cannot even find the United States on an unmarked world map. I believe that if we are to reverse the serious trends that now endanger the global environment, we simply cannot afford this level of geographic illiteracy. As the popular T-shirt says, Good planets are hard to find. It is difficult to believe that, as I write this, in certain areas of South America people must drive with their lights on in the middle of the day because the sky is darkened by the burning of tropical forests. It is hard to comprehend that right now, people are slaughtering elephants with machine guns, then beheading them