The Importance Of Geographic Literacy

* Knowledge of geography promotes a greater understanding of the books and newspapers we read. For example, it helps farmers choose crops best suited to the climatic and soil conditions of the areas in which they live.

Geography will never mean the same to me, the more I read the more I’ve learned it’ so much more than land and boundaries. What I’ve learned from this literature it seems to be the study of issues that affect people and the environment, and ways to solve the world’s problems. Geography is important because it affects all aspects of life. No matter what you are talking or thinking about geography is somehow involved. Everything in the world has a direct connection to place, location, interaction, movement, and region.

Harm de Blij’s book, Why Geography Matters poses a central theme, which I have heard discussed multiple times. Blij argues that the American public is the most geographically illiterate society in the world. Blij blames this decline with the poorly formulated curricula in the American school systems, which ultimately originates from Washington D.C. and the people that run this country. If I had never seen this central theme in action in a classroom I would have been dumbfounded.

2. Acquiring geographic information: Geographic information is information about locations, the physical and human characteristics of those locations, and the geographic activities and conditions of the people who live in those places (NGS).

GIS is a strategic tool emergency mangers rely on to find hidden patterns, relationships, and trends in certain hazardous and high risk areas in the community (Nirupama & Armnakis, 2013). Furthermore, GIS provides various consequences for disasters that can occur in these locations. This helps emergency managers create assessments on which critical services such as fire, emergency medical services, and police are unable to respond to certain hazard zones due to the effects. Additionally, since the GIS uses helicopters, planes, and satellites to capture pictures emergency mangers and first responders are able to see what conditions look like on the ground to help determine their avenues of approach and courses of actions (Kamien,

To me, the definition of geography means that the studies of the world, and not just that it is the language, the climate and how you study the country from the land all the way to the citizen of that country. Geography also mean the statistic of a country like the GDP, literacy rate …

As time passes by, with everything seeming in place, we push aside real life. Activities we like to pretend are not occurring are put on the bottom of the list. War, deadly tsunamis, earthquakes, terrorism, economic crisis, all real life changes which have occurred and are occurring now. People are becoming less knowledgeable than ever when it comes to geography. “Given the accelerating pace of change on our increasingly crowded planet, this may not be surprising- even if it is disturbing,” states Harm de Blij in his book “Why Geography Matters: More Than Ever.” While De Blij tells us how illiterate we have become to geography, he also explains to readers how American people could benefit from the knowledge of Geography in specific situations.

Geography is the study of the Earth's landscapes, environments, places and people and this captivates me. Ever since I was young, I have been inspired to understand the world around us. When I was only four, my family visited the Scottish Highlands and I saw the landscape around me with majestic mountains and exquisite lochs and felt a feeling of awe. Then when I was seven, I began to understand the world more and my parents took me to China - the emerging superpower and this sparked my fascination even more. I wanted to learn about the changing environment of the country, the contrasting provinces, the rural-urban differences, the natural disasters that destroyed people's lives and China's development. From a young age, I knew I wanted to solve the world's problems as a geographer, such as tackling imminent issues of volcanoes and earthquakes and to grasp how people shape the planet we live on.

To me, geography is simply the study of the earth. With that being said it breaks down into the study of land, weather, people, the migration of people, their role in altering nature, and the effect of nature on the people.

Geography Seen Through The American Eye (Question 4) Geography is one of the biggest factors in forming the culture of a society. People are affected by the land in which they preside creating the basis for their lively hood. Land has a crucial role in how the demographic of the United States as well as how other countries are structured. Although the geography differs throughout the nation it rivaled the European idea of a society based on the fact that the American people had a greater connection to the land.

behind it. Many people rely on maps on a day to day basis. These visual aids are used for

In The American Geographies, Lopez says, “to really come to an understanding of a specific American geography, requires not only time but a kind of local expertise, an intimacy with place few of us ever develop” (Lopez 132). Many people on this planet do not truly know the external world they live in, for daily life centers itself around closed off situations in the societal world everyone falls into. School textbooks define geography in a dumbed down fashion and everyone perceives it as such, when true knowledge of the world and its geography comes from experience, from truly living in it. Going out and having adventures and experiences leads to an interesting and fulfilling life, rather than trusting the world fits in a textbook

Before understanding why geography tools are important, know what they are. There are many different types of maps. Physical, climate, economic, topographical, political, road, and many more. Things such as an atlas, globe, aerial photographs, satellite photograph, graphs, and GIS systems are also important in a geographer's line of work. A GIS is a computer program

Geography, in general, is studying where and why locations are placed on a map. To answer these questions, you must have not only memory but skill as well. In unison, you must use geophagic themes, concept and skill, that not many people have or are willing to have. Location, Place, Relationship within Places, Movement, and Regions are the five guidelines for geographic education, a branch of social studies. These were put into place by professional educator to make sure that children would know and value the world around

As an intellectual discipline, geography is divided into the sub-fields of physical geography and human geography, the latter concentrating upon the study of human activities, by the application of qualitative and quantitative research methods.