Whaddya Mean They Can't Find New York?

A couple days ago we had a discussion about driving to Fort Worth, Texas from our house in Marble, located in the mountains of Western Colorado.

A guy Eric works with suggested going over to Utah and then to Texas.

Huh? Drive west to go east. Only airplane pilots do that! Not long ago, our son was routed to Cleveland from Denver by way of Phoenix!

Somebody else came up with going south into New Mexico and then east. But thanks to snow and avalanche danger, the mountain passes south from Marble were closed.

I suggested Denver and across Kansas on I-70 to Wichita and then south through Oklahoma into Texas. Now I don't know for sure if that's really the most efficient, but MapQuest agreed with me.

We may have figured out how to drive to Texas, but unhappily kids don't seem to know much geography. A 2002 National Geographic study discovered that only half of the young people polled between ages 18-24 could find New York on a map. Six out of ten couldn't find Iraq.

And eleven percent couldn't find the U.S. on a map!

However, geography's having a real come back. Traveler IQ Challenge boasts 1.6 million games installed on FaceBook. Although the Challenge starts out with something simple like "Find London," it progresses to more difficult places like Ashkabat, Turkmenistan.

Talk about a Brain Booster!
Especially since the game
bases your score
on the speed with
which you found Ashkabat.

To help kids advance to Traveler
IQ Challenge, start them out
with fun online geography games

National Geographic also has games for kids Schools can register to take part in the National Geographic's GeoBee And kids
can play GeoBee even if their school isn't registered. Of course
you can play too.

MaryJo

P.S. Have you listened yet to the free 60-minute Introduction to Brain Gym? Downloaded the free 17-page handout complete with a personal action plan? What're you waiting for?