All Ages What is a good way to teach international Geography?

How many countries of the world can you locate on a map?

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H.C. Heartland

H.C. Heartland

Legacy Member
How much importance does or did your school place on international Geography? Mine mostly focused on my national Geography and I found myself as an adult not knowing where any of the European countries were located not to mention other countries around the world. What is a good way to teach international Geography?
 
In general, schools in our area do not place much emphasis on geography at all -national or international. We try and tackle the subject at home. Some methods we have used have included a large map of the world on one of our walls, learning words from other languages and identifying the countries where the language is spoken, and also checked out age appropriate non-fiction books about various countries from the library. It has definitely expanded my child's (and mine own) understanding and knowledge of geography.
 
There's this software called Geographic Information Systems (GIS) produced by ArcView. Maybe students should be made to learn the tool at an early age - as early as primary school in fact. The software gives a detailed listing of all continents, regions, countries, cities, towns, districts and basic administrative units. What's more, it's easy to navigate and you can create different kinds of map with stats. Kids will have fun using this software.
 
Engage the students! Encourage them to do out of class research on a particular aspect of a country's culture than they find interesting. Let them be creative - allow them to do skits, songs, drawings, and all of that good stuff. Students are highly motivated when they actually want to learn something and can present it in a way they are most comfortable with.
 
Krrizal said:
Engage the students! Encourage them to do out of class research on a particular aspect of a country's culture than they find interesting. Let them be creative - allow them to do skits, songs, drawings, and all of that good stuff. Students are highly motivated when they actually want to learn something and can present it in a way they are most comfortable with.
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I agree that hands on learning is absolutely one of the best ways to get students engaged for learning any topic. Nowadays, schools just don't seem to have the time to allow students to be creative and do hands on learning.

Usually the schools in our area do sponsor a "culture night" where families are encouraged to bring information, crafts, and food that represent their families culturally. These are usually once a year but doing them twice a year or more might also help kids become more engaged in learning about the world.
 
Quite a potent observation. Most institutions teach geography as pertains to their nation and continent and largely ignore the geography of other regions. There are students who cannot name a capital city outside their continent. The best way is to pin the world map on class walls. Students should be given copies of the world map to hang on their locker. The geography teacher should start every lesson with a quiz about a particular country.
 
When I was growing up it was very important, we not only learnt it at school but even had our own games to learn more countries. We didn't really know much about them but we did now where they were.
When you enjoy yourself while you learn, you never forget what you learnt.
 
The best way to teach international geography is to use technology. Using a picture or a video for the students to see the lands of other countries will be a big help.
 
The best way for me is to link the teaching to memorable elements, for example when teaching the students about China and the countries that share borders with it, when talking about Nepal, I don't think that a student can forget about the country if we mention the Mount Everest, or when talking about Colombia no student can forget about it once mentioning Pablo Escobar, the point is each country have its own special thing, either geographically, historically, flag wise, or any other thing, basing the teaching process on that special thing makes the information special it self.
 
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I was watching a Tv show a few days ago and heard one lady say she was going to Africa. Later she said she was going to Nigeria. When asked what the difference was, she said it was the same thing and I wanted to hide under my bed. This is a woman over 50years old and it just showed how inclusive a lot of people are, not bothering to know anything of the people and cultures beyond their immediate milieu. All she had to do (before embarrassing herself and her family on international tv) was to check it out on the internet. The people she told would go on to tell others that information.

I believe the best way to teach geography to students is to tell them about the people and cultures of the places they are being told so that they would easily associate a particular people with something unique to them. I believe people (students) would retain such information better.
 
I guess the best way to teach International geography should be done by making use of maps and a dramatic explanation of incidents and remarkable deeds by those countries which can help them store the knowledge effectively.
 
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