Let’s face it: American students are pretty poor at understanding geography and examining how geographic characteristics like topography and location affect culture. The shocking state of America’s geographic illiteracy is highlighted in National Geographic’s 2006 survey of students’ understanding of geography:

• Half of young Americans can’t find New York on a map.
• Fewer than 3 in 10 young Americans think it important to know the locations of countries in the news and just 14% believe speaking another language is a necessary skill.
• 74% of young Americans think that English is the most spoken native world language.

It’s shocking even if the study is a couple of years old.

I would love to say that these eye opening statistics were the impetus for doing something different with my sixth grade students. Alas, that’s not the case. The catalyst was my school’s curriculum; I have to teach geography and map skills. Nevertheless, I believe that one of my classroom activities potentially built the necessary geographic understandings that are so ridiculously low in American students.

Geomapping News Articles

Geomapping news articles is relatively simple in theory. Students find online news articles with a tie to geography (place, city, state, country, landmark, feature) and then create a placemark at the exact geographic spot in Google Earth. The placemark contains the title of the article, a brief summary, and a link to the source. The technicalities are a little more complex, but not all that difficult with a basic understanding of Google Earth and html.

What are the benefits of geomapping news articles?

• Real & Relevant: Asking students to find the geographic location of online news articles in Google Earth makes geography relevant to their role as citizens in a global world. Students are reading and learning about their world while, at the same time, locating the landmarks and locations in a virtual world, Google Earth. They aren’t memorizing states, capitals, and countries; they are reading and learning in the context of location and place.
• Active: A number of my students can recite that Cairo is located in Egypt. However, only one student could find Cairo on a map even after reading the article, In Cairo, Living in Fear at a Cliff’s Sharp Edge. Flying to Cairo, Egypt in Google Earth offered opportunities for understanding the distance from America to Egypt, continent, and local characteristics (zooming into Cairo). I heard phrases like, “Wow, there’s the Nile!”
• Exploration & Discussion: Yes, you can find news articles and thumbtack the information to a paper map or a wall map. However, traditional paper-based world maps don’t allow you to zoom down to the street level. You can’t look at a coastline and debate which area is most susceptible to tsunamis, a conversation that arose when my students geomapped the news article, Japan’s Tsunami History Shows What’s in Store.
• 21st Century Skills: Geomapping news articles legitimized searching skills, delicious, and RSS feeds. My students began to see how an RSS feed for news articles, our grade-level delicious account, and searching are helpful and necessary for learning about the world. They understood how to use these tools/skills, but none were particularly relevant in the daily classroom activities (Note to self: Re-examine some of my practices).
• Sharing: Geomapping news articles in Google Earth creates opportunities for sharing work with others.

Lesson Resources:

• Lesson Tutorial
• Geomapped News Articles (My Example)
• Geomapped News Articles (Student 1): Coming Soon!
• Geomapped News Articles (Student 2): Coming Soon!
• Geomapped News Articles (Student 3): Coming Soon!
• Geomapped News Articles (Student 4): Coming Soon!

References:
Study: Geography Greek to young Americans. CNN.com. 4 May 2006. 12 Oct. 2008 http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/05/02/geog.test/.
Hira3. “Have a great day!.” Flickr. 14 Sep. 2006. 12 Oct. 2008 http://www.flickr.com/photos/33264067@N00/243089839/.