Subject: How is geography taught in your country
Posted by: romeomikegolf
Date: Oct 31 08
Over the last 20 years or so geography teaching seems to have taken a step away from the traditional topics that I covered when I went to school in the dim and distant past. My children, at least in secondary school, were taught more about local traffic plans and town planning than rivers lakes and mountains. Most kids today seem hard pressed to be able to identify where other countries are on a map. Is this the same in your area?
Posted by: romeomikegolf
Date: Oct 31 08
Over the last 20 years or so geography teaching seems to have taken a step away from the traditional topics that I covered when I went to school in the dim and distant past. My children, at least in secondary school, were taught more about local traffic plans and town planning than rivers lakes and mountains. Most kids today seem hard pressed to be able to identify where other countries are on a map. Is this the same in your area?
38 replies. On page 1 of 2 pages. 1 2
mjws1968 
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It is the same in Wales it's all physical and environmental geography that the politically correct education authorities seem to think will prepare children for modern life. If you ask my sister's kids what the capital of France is, the little dears would probably say "F". Reply #1. Nov 03 08, 11:27 AM |
Cymruambyth
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Here in Manitoba it depends on the grade level. In the three first grades, children learn about their local environment - streets, topographical features, rivers, etc. They start with neighbourhoods, move out to districts and finally the city and its environs. In grades 4,5 and 6 they move on to the geography of the province, then to the prairie provinces, and finally western Canada. Grades 7 and 8 study Canadian and North American geography. In high school - grades 9, 10, 11 and 12 - students move on to the continents and world geography. Geography studies in our schools encompass not only physical geography but also social/cultural/historical geography. Reply #2. Nov 10 08, 3:03 PM |
danjou
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In school, we didn't have Geography until we were in 7th grade, and then more emphasis was put on the political and cultural aspects than the physical. That's the only actual geography course I had until college, and the curse I took then was physical geography (meteorology, geology, topology, etc), with no reference to anything else. Most schools in the US are moving towards more cross-discipline work, but they only seem to touch on geography at the very basic level when the teacher realizes that there's no point talking about the Mason-Dixon line or 36º30” when the kids have no clue what they are, let alone where the Rhine or the Caspian Sea are in terms of countries, or even continents. Reply #3. Nov 21 08, 11:02 AM |
jordandog
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As far as Ohio, I could write the same post that Cym did. I am very happy that my almost 5 year old grandson is actually learning a bit of it in preschool. I think that's wonderful and so do my son and DIL! Reply #4. Nov 21 08, 11:35 AM |
Dee30
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They start teaching about location in kindergarten by way of stories. But by the 3 or 4th grades it is actually a subject to be discussed several times per week. Reply #5. Dec 07 08, 10:27 PM |
Valfuunator
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RMO, your kids are exactly right, I go to high school currently and they teach us about road maps and plans to road maps and plans to plan about road mapping road map plan plans, you get the point :). Reply #6. Jan 16 09, 10:21 AM |
raidersruleall
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In my high school, we were basically given a map of a certain continent and were supposed to memorize the locations of certain countries. I have now forgotten most of those locations. Reply #7. Feb 25 09, 10:25 PM |
7PinKy7
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Where I live, Wisconsin, I did learn about rivers, lakes, and mountains of all the countries. Also, I learned about all the different climate regions of the world. Reply #8. Apr 07 09, 8:03 PM |
| doublemm
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My geography class focused alot on rivers and lakes early on. Later we moved onto GDP and stuff like that :S This interested me little. Also, I didn't like my teacher. I was threatened with detention for being stung in the neck by a wasp during one of her lessons! Reply #9. Apr 10 09, 3:09 PM |
| Jabberwok
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Schools in England and Wales have to follow the National Curriculum, and there are specific key skills and themes that must be covered at each key stage. We've just had a term on atlas work, maps at different scales including Ordnance survey, countries capitals and physical features, satellite imagery...volcanoes, earthquakes mountains and tectonic plates. My class know the capitals of two dozen countries and can locate them on the map. And giggle with enthusiasm and excitement whilst they do so. Next term, Africa. With special focus on Tanzania and Egypt. Most of the class will be 8 by then, and they all say they love Geography. Reply #10. Apr 10 09, 3:28 PM |
Rowena8482
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I know that things that I studied in geography lessons when I was at school are now on the chemistry syllabus. Our GCSE chemistry book covers the rock cycle and a couple of other things that were on the geography O Level I sat many years ago. Reply #11. Apr 22 09, 4:34 PM |
| Rowena8482
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I should have added, my 6 year old can find various places on a globe, but only because we have one here and I showed them, not because they learn it at school. She can also relate between a flat map and a round globe, again, because we have both. Gothson (18) asked me today where the Carribbean was, and I told him to get the map and look just south of Florida and north of South America and he had barely any idea what I meant, I had to point to it... sigh.. but all his "education" was in the local school system. (Reminds me all over again why I am glad I homeschool no2 son and make an effort with the little ones to "fill in the gaps" left by the school) Reply #12. Apr 22 09, 4:38 PM |
Pejikr
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In my school they teach the names of countries and landforms. Reply #13. Aug 30 09, 11:53 AM |
honeybee4
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Yes, I remember memorizing the counties in California. There are 58 counties. An easy job if you consider Texas has 254 counties. Reply #14. Aug 30 09, 12:23 PM |
veronikkamarrz
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I had all my schooling in Anchorage, and apart from states, and their capital cities, I can't remember much about Geography... Reply #15. Aug 30 09, 1:10 PM |
jonnowales
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My education in geography at the primary level was atrocious. At one point we had a lesson naming the seven continents (age 8 - year 4) and we had got to six as a class and so I volunteered the seventh as noone else seemed to know. I said the seventh continent is Oceania, only to be told by the teacher (a geography "specialist") that she had never heard of such a place and that the right answer was Australasia. I tried to argue the point, but it was futile! Oceania didn't exist in her mind. I wonder why the continents were being taught at age 8, shouldn't people be aware of the names of the continents well before this age? My GCSE was so dull that I hated turning up for the lessons. The only good feature was farming/agriculture. I couldn't really care about urban to rural migration - just that it happens is more than enough for me to know. I dropped the subject after GCSE and haven't at all regretted it. I don't miss colouring in maps and getting a telling off for giving a certain country the wrong colour. I would have been far more interested in learning about the features of that country than colouring it in on a map. Right now the subject is being abused by the environmentalists who teach global warming as unopposed scientific fact without showing any of the causal science - just the effects! My lasting memory of my geography education is colouring in maps, getting told Oceania doesn't exist and viewing dubious graphs showing correlation between CO2 and global average temperatures; such maps having tiny increments on the ordinate scale. The geography curriculum needs to be radically overhauled from year 1 through 11. Enough said! :) Reply #16. Aug 30 09, 1:26 PM |
papasmurf13
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in Ireland, geography is studied not in great detail, but great variance, at secondary level; things from relief to economic to contours, cities etc. the major downside i find is that the geographical region seems to be confined to europe, by the most part on the curriculum (very little about the Americas, Africa, Australia and Asia; perhaps just capital cities covered of some countries) Reply #17. Sep 09 09, 9:49 AM |
naerulinnupesa
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I was quite pleased with the way geography was taught here. And I learned to read maps well. Those who didn't, had a tough time in class. It's all there! I don't necessarily know all the capitals and exact locations of all countries but I do know which part of the world to look and it won't take long to find the answer. Once we were talking about Europe (in the 10th grade) and one girl was asked to show Spain on the map. And she couldn't find it! I wouldn't normally do anything like it but I marched to the map and showed the country myself so that we could get on with the lesson. I think it's elementary to know some things. For comic relief I include this clip from a game show "War of the Roses". First question: name a notorious person from history. - They named some local politicians, singers etc. Second question: whichs sports are accompanied by music? - War of the Roses, American football, singing, gymnastics Third question: name a country that is located by the Baltic Sea. - First team answers: Switzerland. *me - laughing* - Over to the second team who answers (drums, please): ...Switzerland! *me - nearly falling off the chair* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5IvZ0IpqNg Reply #18. Mar 29 11, 2:36 AM |
purelyqing
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In my country (Malaysia), we are only taught Geography for the first three years of secondary school. It was mostly Malaysian geography, fishing sites, plantation sites, mountain ranges, rivers, petroleum sites and things like that. We also covered a little Southeast Asian geography and even less Asian geography. We hardly touched on world gepgraphy at all. So my knowledge of world gepgraphy is severely limited. In upper secondary, I think only the Arts stream did Geography. Perhaps they did more of World geography then, I don't know. I went to the Science stream and we didn't have to do geography. Reply #19. Apr 01 11, 6:35 AM |
| houston1127
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I don't think Geography is given a high priority in Florida public schools (Although, I don't think much of anything is given a high prority in Florida public schools). Which is odd because a thorough knowledge of that subject would make other subjects (history, current events, social studies, etc) much easier to learn. My public education was horrible, if not negligent. I learned Geography from a cheap globe, my Dad, and maps from National Geographic magazines. Thanks, public schools, for wasting my youth. Thanks, National Geographic, for making such great maps! Reply #20. Apr 01 11, 8:19 AM |
38 replies. On page 1 of 2 pages. 1 2
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