Where on Earth is New York? Pedagogical Lessons from Finnish Geography Students’ Knowledge of the United States

Abstract

Behind this study are our (1) classroom observations suggesting a decline in the cartographic and general knowledge of Finnish geography students; (2) interest in developing the content and method of geographical education; and (3) belief that intellectual challenge is not incompatible with entertainment. A total of 257 university and high school geography students responded to a survey about US society and geography. The survey explored (1) the students’ interests and level of general geographic and cartographic knowledge; and (2) how the findings could contribute to the teaching of geography. What and how much the respondents knew varied substantially according to educational background, age, and gender. Women were weaker in their knowledge than men, and a strong link was found between television watching preferences and cartographic knowledge. Women’s poor performance suggests a problem with geography education in Finnish schools, as many future teachers of geography are female. The implications are that (1) geo-educators should seek fresh ways to engage themes that connect with their students’ preferred everyday activities and (2) cartographic knowledge needs special attention in female-dominated geography teacher education. We suggest that (1) there are several rather simple ways to begin this work and (2) the idea of ‘graphicacy’ should be revisited to support them.