Geography in Schools

TeachTN · #1 03-12-2013, 07:04 AM

Does your district still offer a stand-alone course in Geography? Is your state or district considering getting rid of Geography as a stand-alone course? Right now TN has Geography on its own, but is moving towards teaching it within History classes. I'm definitely against this, I mean, how do you teach Geography in an early Western Civilization course when the maps are COMPLETELY different? It would be pertinent to U.S. History classes, but there is already so much content to learn already.

I'm studying this topic for a proposal in one of my grad courses, since I am very passionate about it, and just wonder if this is going on elsewhere.

BTW, this video alone is why we need to teach geography in school: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cey35bBWXls

MikeTeachesMath · #2 03-12-2013, 07:11 AM

In NYS, geography is covered in a (generally) two-year global history course.

http://www.p12.nysed.gov/ciai/socst/pub/sscore2.pdf

Shanoo · #3 03-12-2013, 07:12 AM

We still teach Geography. In fact, for graduation, our students need to take one Grade 12 "World" course - Geo, History, etc.

For us, though, it's not just teaching maps. Our students learn about water systems, how slave labour is used for the production of certain commodities (like chocolate), child soldiering, and the North/South divide among many, many other things. My SO teaches Grade 12 Geo and he always begins his course by being clear that if they are expecting to only have to memorize maps, they're in for a rude awakening.

platypusok · #4 03-12-2013, 07:18 AM

Our social studies standards were rewritten last year.

6th grade--Western Hemisphere geography

7th grade--Eastern Hemisphere geography (this used to be the year that geography was taught). This is a test subject.

High school--World Geography.

KateL · #5 03-12-2013, 07:28 AM

In California, 9th graders take geography, 10th graders take world history, and 11th graders take US history.

Emily Bronte · #6 03-12-2013, 10:29 AM

In my district it is not taught stand alone. In other districts in my state, it is offered in either 8th or 9th grade.

Ron6103 · #7 03-12-2013, 08:12 PM

It has been a stand alone course forever until next year, when it is being eliminated (curriculum steamlining) and being "incorporated" into history. I'm not sure how I feel yet... I will find out next year I suppose. It wasn't mandatory before though, so some kids got World Geography but skipped World History, wheras some kids got World History but skipped World Geography. I pushed to mandate both, but lost that fight.

Ms B IL · #8 03-13-2013, 07:56 PM

I'm not sure how it is now, but I went to school in Oregon. I never had a separate geography course. Then again, all of our social studies courses were integrated in grades 6-9, then we took a year of US History, one semester of government, and one semester of economics. Even the year of US History I took was mostly integrated with other subjects. I never really had a "just" history course until I took AP History my senior year.

mopar · #9 03-13-2013, 08:01 PM

We used to teach a stand alone geography class, but our US history teachers were having trouble teaching all of history in one year. So, our geography course became 1/3 of the year, US history 1/3 and constitution 1/3.

HistTchr · #10 03-13-2013, 08:24 PM

We used to require Geography as a 1/2 year sophomore class, but eliminated it a few years ago and replaced it with a current events course. We are considering bringing it back as more of a "Global Issues" class--similar to what Shanoo describes. It would be offered as a junior/senior elective.