MAPS

I hope maps don't seem boring to most people.

I started enjoying maps on our family trips to Mexico when I was little. I remember lying in the back of our station wagon with a road map and trying to follow it as we drove south. This year I took a statistics class and for one of my labs I surveyed the students on my college campus to find out how many countries they could identify on a blank world map. The results were pretty discouraging.

While I don't expect people to enjoy maps obsessively like I do, I think it is good for us to know our way around the world on a map. This past week major events have occured in Kenya, Pakistan, Chile, Indonesia and of course the ongoing war in Iraq. But how many people hear about the riots in Kenya and know where it is in the world?

I keep a world map over my computer so when I read the news I can look up and quickly identify where the event is occuring. We can have a better perspective of the big issues when we know where they are. You understand the crucial position of Syria and Jordan if you know they lie between Iraq and Israel, and the strain on Sudan if you see that it is divided between northern Africa which is predomenantly Muslim and sub-Saharan Africa which is more Christian.

I have really enjoyed my Human Geography class and have learned much more about the relationship between people and where they live and how they move.

Here are some tips for knowing where countries are.

-Keep a map over your computer
-Keep an atlas by where you watch the news so you can look things up when you hear about them.
-Get a blank dry erase map to quiz yourself or your family periodically. (my nine year old can now identify up to 34 countries correctly)
-If your reading a book, make sure you know where it takes place (There's even maps of Narnia and Middle Earth!).

Enjoy maps, there not as boring as some would suggest.

Happy Mapping!