Sunday, July 19, 2009

Map Skills Headed South-----Which Way Is That?


In spite of the tremendous combined weight of old issues of National Geographic magazines in basements across our country, it turns out Americans are pretty bad at geography, and show a surprising lack of basic familiarity with maps. We seem to know way less even than the above map indicates.
American Map Skills - Australia is Iran?

I seem to remember that in the early 1980's, the University of Michigan dismantled its geography department. So maybe that academic trend contributed towards the problem. The following young lady has a different theory.


By the way, did you notice the most pointed joke in the first map? I'll give you a hint. It's not any of the written labels.

8 comments:

djinn said...

No Texas?

Unknown said...

Think bigger!

djinn said...

Ohhh! Africa's not even a country anymore.

kerfuffler said...

Bingo.

C. L. Hanson said...

Is there a close-up of that map they used? It looked funny, but I could barely see it...

kerfuffler said...

Try holding down 'control' (Ctrl) and while doing that, hit the +/= button right next to the backspace bar a few times. To reduce the size back, do the same, but hit the _/- button.

Hope it works for you! I assume these keyboards are all set up pretty much the same way.

C. L. Hanson said...

Thanks, but I'm not sure what you mean to click on.

I'm talking about the map they used in the video, where (in one case) Australia was labeled "North Korea" with Tasmania as "South Korea." For that one I only see a link to the video, not a link to a still shot of their map.

kerfuffler said...

Sorry,
I thought you meant the map at the top of the post.

The map in the video was labeled in lots of different ways. They kept putting different names on Australia-----Iran, Korea, France(?)

Your best bet to see, is to click on the video while it is running. I believe that will take you to you-tube. Then enlarge the video to full screen by clicking on the rectangle in the lower right corner----not the right-most square, but the one right next to it.

Then hit pause anytime they are showing the map so you can get a better view.
I hope this helps!