Welcome to the kick-off of the 2012 Virtual Geography Convention! If you have a presentation or blog post you wished published please contact me at catholicgauze [at] gmail [dot] com!
Our first post is by Isabella Contolini: a proud Coloradoan who has represented her state at the national level of the Geography Bee.
The extraordinary thing about geography is that some people
don’t find geography extraordinary.
Geography knowledge in the United States is pitiful. My dad
and I were shocked by this when I did my first geography bee in 4th
grade. First of all, you’d think that common sense would tell people it’s
pretty important to know about the world! After all, we live in it every day;
hear about it on the news, and travel all over for vacations! You’d think that
Americans find the nature of the countries around us interesting.
Geography is a relevant part of our lives- just as relevant
as math and science! Look at the tags of your clothes. Where are they made? Do
you know where those places are? Do you have any idea why your clothes might be
made there? Tune into the international news tonight. (BBC is great.) Make a
list of all the different places outside
the US mentioned. What names do you hear?
Does your house have an atlas? If not, consider purchasing
one. Or use the computer if you don’t want to spend any money. Learn something
about these places - be it their capital, official language, currency, or even
something as simple as what continent it is on. If you see a new place, look it
up. Repeating simple acts like this can teach you geography little by
little.
However, geography is not just names of places and cities
and memorization, either. Geography is about people and cultures. Geography has
to do with the sports you play, the music you listen to, the clothes you wear,
the language you speak, what you eat, where you go to school, what kind of car
you drive- everything is related to
geography!
Here’s an example. What do you do in your free time? Playing
sports is one of the most popular pastimes worldwide. Popular American sports
include football, basketball, and baseball. But by far the most played, most
well-known, most loved sport is soccer. There are tons of different names for
it, too. The English call it football (confusing!), the Mexicans fùtbol, the
Italians calcio, the Dutch voetbal, the Estonians jalgpall- the list goes on
and on.
What are some of your favorite foods? Pizza, tacos, and
noodles are all popular in America and very delicious. But none of these foods
originated in the United States. Pizza began in Naples, Italy. Tacos are, of
course, Mexican. And the Chinese have been making noodles for thousands of
years, and they were brought to Europe in the 1200s by Marco Polo. Cheese is
presumed to have been discovered by Arabs traveling through the Sahara Desert
carrying milk in a bag of animal skin. So food is related to geography, too.
Do you know what you would like to be when you grow up? For
most people, that’s a simple question. Ask a kindergartener, and you will get
tons of different answers- astronaut, firefighter, teacher, nurse. But what most people don’t realize is that
all of these jobs- and lots more- have to do with geography. Pilots need to
know about where they will land, and the weather conditions along their route.
Nurses and teachers work with people from many different cultures. They should
know some things about these people! Meteorologists share the weather forecast
with us every day. They show us that giant map of the US and tell us the names
of places all over.
Do you think about helping poor people and solving the
world’s problems? Geography has to do with this, too. About half of the world’s
population of 7 billion people lives
on $2.00 or less a day. That’s approximately 3 ½ billion people- an inconceivable number. Think about what you could buy with $2.00. Would it be
enough to live on every day? How much
money do you think you spend on average every day? Take gas, for example. $3.00
a gallon- to fill up a car with a 30-gallon tank is about $90.00. That is an incredibly high number. The amount you spend on
gas each week could feed a person in a poor country for 45 days- more than a
month! Do you go out to dinner? Most sit-down restaurants charge about $10.00 a
plate. Multiply that by your family of 4 or 5, and that is $40.00 or $50.00!
Enough to feed a person in a 3rd-world country for a week or more.
These numbers give you a small idea of how most of the
world’s population lives. Our 3-times-a-day meals, 2 cars, a large, heated
house with furniture and other luxuries- they are not common occurrences.
Compared to most countries, the US is extremely wealthy. GDP per capita is the
average amount of money a person in each country earns a year. According to the
CIA World Factbook, the American (USA) GDP per capita is $48,100.00. However,
the average Guatemalan earns about $5,000.000 a year. That is almost ten times less than us. And the average person in
the Democratic Republic or the Congo earns $300.00 a year. Many Americans earn than much money in a day!
It is clear that most of the world people aren't nearly as
privileged as we are, and by learning geography, we can figure out ways to help
them. The Bible says, “Whatever you did unto to the least of my
brothers you did unto Me.” God wants us to help the poor and needy, and
when we go to His kingdom someday, that is how we will be judged. Learning
geography is the perfect way to start. The world is all around us, and we need
to stop ignoring it. There is so much more out there than our safe, wealthy
country. The world needs you. God needs you. He is relying on you to
help Him. There is only one question left: Will you?
Isabella
Contolini, almost 14. - www.geokid.org
