Geography skills report

Not strictly geological, but since both geographers and geologists have a slight need to know
where they are, this report from National Geographic and A.N.Other group may be of interest :
http://www9.nationalgeographic.com/roper2006/pdf/RoperPoll2006.pdf
I would also anticipate that there will be the usual screaming of the killfile claiming that
I'm being anti-American by posting this. But since it's an (a couple?) of American organisations
carrying out the surveys and publishing the results.
To be honest, I wouldn't expect the results to be *much* different in kind if the survey were
to be repeated in Britain, in a European scale of "local". Viz, where the study cited finds that :
Two-thirds (67%) can find Louisiana on a U.S. map and half (52%) can find
Mississippi . leaving a third or more who cannot find these states, in spite of
months of intensive media coverage of the 2005 hurricanes and their aftermath.
o Moreover, half (50%) cannot find New York State, even though it is the third
most populous state in the union, after California and Texas.
For questioning a Brit or a Dane (not to be too Anglo-centric) one would need to choose an example
like questions about the course of the Danube on grounds of distance from the most populous countries
of Europe and recent natural disasters. How many fellow Brits could answer several questions around
this topic correctly? I doubt that the results would be hugely different. (I'll leave Carsten to
answer for the Danes themselves.)

Young Americans appear to stick close to home, reporting limited contact with other
cultures outside the U.S.
o Three-quarters (74%) have traveled to another state in the past year, but seven
Only 3/4 travelled out-of-state ? Well, again a European/ Brit comparison isn't going to be
too simple. But taking "state" comparable to the regions of Britain (Northumbria, Midlands, Anglia,
Mercia, Scotland, ...) or the départements of France. I don't think it would be easy to demonstrate
a difference.

in ten (70%) have not traveled abroad at all in the past three years.
Now that's not news. But it is scary. How can one live one's life in only one country is
beyond me. But then again, anecdote in this group is going to be *so* prone to self-selection bias
...

o Six in ten (62%) cannot speak a second language .fluently..
For Britain, this isn't going to be too different. In fact, given the numbers of hispanics in
the States, there may be that many bilingual English+Spanish speakers that the States does better on
this criterion than Britain. Of course, for the rest of Europe, bi- or tri-linguality is the norm.

o Nine in ten (89%) do not correspond regularly with anyone outside the U.S.
Self-selection issues again. If you reply in this group, then you're in the 11%.

o Only two in ten (22%) have a passport.

That would imply that some 8% of the US population have been to Canada and no-other country.
Hmmm, that's on the assumption that US-ians can travel to Canada without a passport, which I think
I've heard before, but I'm by no means sure of. Again, I think that in Europe the number would be
near 100%, even for the Schengen countries.

Although they have some functional skills, some young Americans lack the basic practical
skills necessary for safety and employment in today.s world.
o One-third (34%) would go in the wrong direction in the event of an evacuation.
Darwin discussed the consequences of this sort of variation. Is it heritable?

o As many . one-third (32%) . would miss a conference call scheduled with
colleagues in another time zone.

To be honest (and having to deal with time zone differences regularly at work myself), I'd
wonder how much of this is due to the unhelpful mnemonics so-often used. Personally I just make a
note of the difference of caller and recipient w.r.t. UT, write it on the wall, and work it out every
time. What do the astrophotographers do?

Not only is map reading considered important, but more than three-quarters of young Americans
have at least one kind of map in their home or car. The most popular item is a street map or
atlas of the area where they live . overall, half (48%) own this item. Around a third have a U.S.
map (38%) or a world or U.S. atlas (31%). Fewer than one in five have a world map (19%), a
globe (15%) or map for outdoor recreation (14%). Just 6% say they have a Global Positioning
Systems (GPS) device. One in five (22%) don.t have any of these.

Self selection of readers in this group makes comment difficult. Without doing a count in my
map box, I think about 30 maps from 3 continents I've used the maps on (I can't really claim to have
used a map in Africa. And I haven't replaced the GPS in 3 years.) But I find it hard to conceive of
an educated person who doesn't have an atlas at least.
Actually, the phrase "U.S. atlas" is quite bizarre - isn't an atlas by definition a set of
maps of the whole world?

Overall quiz performance is better among:
? Young adults who read about worldwide current events and news online (an average of
34.4 questions correct);
[SNIP]
This isn't really astonishing, is it?
? People from families long settled in the U.S. (29.5) than immigrants or first generation
Americans (25.1).

But this is a bit stranger ... hmmm ... or maybe not : an appreciable difference in the
proportion of multigeneration-settled going to college would subsume this in the general education
effect shown. Would be interesting to see if they can break this confounding pair of correlations
out. Correlations do not, of necessity, imply causation.

Nearly six in ten young Americans overestimate the number of U.S. inhabitants, often vastly so.

Now that's an odd one.
three in ten respondents put the U.S. population at an astounding one to two billion
people, and an equal number estimate the U.S. population to be in the range of 750 million to
one billion.

And that's plain worrying. Surely an essential part of the education of members of a
privileged elite is to *know* that they're part of a privileged elite. Otherwise, how are they to
know that they have a situation to defend. As Marie Antoinette is reputed to have said, "Let them eat
cake!"

Of the rest,
young adults tend to underestimate the impact of immigration on population growth.

That's one for the fascists and bigots in the population to remember. Having wasted another 2
hours today trying (and failing) to get a bank account established for my step-daughter, that's no
news to me.

Q. Which language is spoken by the most people in the world as their primary language?

%
Mandarin Chinese 18
Incorrect answers incl. DK (net) 82
Russian 2
English 74
Arabic 5
Don.t know 1

Odd choice. IIRC, they've left out several of the most common languages, such as the various
Hindi variants (hmmm, much variation there ; I can see why they ducked the point) ; Spanish and
French. Interesting comment (in the linguistics numbers) on the comparative efficacy of breeding and
conquest.

Interestingly, young Americans who are immigrants or
the child of immigrants are no more or less likely to correspond regularly with someone abroad,
compared to those whose family immigrated several generations ago.

Well, now you know. If a friend of yours is moving to the States, there's a 10% chance they'll
maintain contact. Again, reverting to the domestic example, Her Ladyship is maintaining emails with 4
or 5 people from the last few years, and the wife likewise. But out of a typical friends/ family
circle of probably a hundred people each, that's actually in more or less agreement with 1-in-ten
maintaining contacts. (Or perceived as maintaining contacts from "the Old Country".)
--
Aidan Karley, FGS
Aberdeen, Scotland,
Location: 57°10'11" N, 02°08'43" W (sub-tropical Aberdeen), 0.021233

.

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