Mar. 1, 1999 ATHENS, Ohio -- Ever wonder why so many American
students can't find Vietnam on the map or are hard-pressed to
explain why the District of Columbia isn't a state? It may be
because they don't like geography and sometimes aren't exposed
to an active learning environment when they study geography in
school, says an Ohio University researcher who has examined
students' attitudes toward the subject. The state of geographic
literacy in America received widespread national media attention
in 1989 when a worldwide Gallup poll reported that Americans
ages 18 to 24 performed the poorest of any nation when asked to
identify locations on a world map. Participants averaged only
6.9 correct answers to 16 questions. Fourteen percent couldn't
identify the location of the United States on a map. In a
recently published study, Associate Professor of Geography
Dorothy Sack and her colleagues surveyed students in grades four
through six in San Marcos, Texas, and found that many children
considered geography their l