Maphead_ Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks - Ken Jennings [21]
But this generation’s collective geo-awareness is in just as much jeopardy as its emotional independence or its body mass index. Today’s stuck-inside kids feel little connection to nature and landscape. In 2002, one study found that eight-year-old kids could identify more varieties of Pokémon than real native species in their area. Meanwhile, most measures of outdoor activity—camping, fishing, hiking, visits to national parks and forests—are steadily declining by about 1 percent a year. The boomers are still going outside, say park rangers and pollsters, but not their kids and grandkids. Never having been given free rein to explore an area and then find their way home, these kids’ responses to real-world navigation range somewhere between discomfort and abject terror. A Harvard Magazine article on the 2009 freshman class related the story of a new student who ventured into Boston by subway but panicked at a downtown intersection. Not sure whether to turn left or right, she called—who else?—her father in Chicago, who supplied the answer.
And they’ll pass their geographical ineptness on to their children. A recent study at England’s Hertfordshire University found that British moms now refuse to let their children explore the countryside because they themselves feel so clueless about geography. “None of the mothers I spoke to could read a map,” said the study’s author. “They did not know how to make up circular walks or work out where it might be safe to go cycling.” If, as Peirce Lewis claimed, a love of place is what turns young people on to geography, then the discipline is in trouble. We’re becoming a society not of topophiles but of topophobes.
But maybe the discipline of geography would be in trouble anyway. For centuries, it was considered one of the pillars of a good liberal education, as illustrated by the philosopher Edmund Burke’s famous observation, “Geography is an earthly subject, but a heavenly science.” No poetry or history “can be read with profit . . . without the helpe and knowledge of this most Noble Science,” Wye Salton-stall enthused in the preface to his 1653 English translation of Mercator’s atlas. But today, only one of U.S. News & World Report’s ten top-ranked U.S. colleges even has a geography department. (There’s still an eight-person “committee” at the University of Chicago.) This trend dates back to 1948, when Harvard president James Conant proclaimed, “Geography is not a university subject!” and abolished his department. Most other campuses followed in short order.
The decline of geography in academia is easy to understand: we live in an age of ever-increasing specialization, and geography is a generalist’s discipline. Imagine the poor geographer trying to explain to someone at a campus cocktail party (or even to an unsympathetic administrator) exactly what it is he or she studies.
“‘Geography’ is Greek for ‘writing about the Earth.’ We study the Earth.”
“Right, like geologists.”
“Well, yes, but we’re interested in the whole world, not just the rocky bits. Geographers also study oceans, lakes, the water cycle . . .”
“So it’s like oceanography or hydrology.”
“And the atmosphere.”
“Meteorology, climatology . . .”
“It’s broader than just physical geography. We’re also interested in how humans relate to their planet.”
“How is that different from ecology or environmental science?”
“Well, it encompasses them. Aspects of them. But we also study the social and economic and cultural and geopolitical sides of—”
“Sociology, economics, cultural studies, poli sci.”
“Some geographers specialize in different world regions.”
“Ah, right, we have Asian and African and Latin American studies programs here. But I didn’t know they were part of the geography department.”
“They’re not.”
(Long