Connecting Our World

Geography is a discipline that operates at many scales, from the extremely local (I recently wrote about the geography of the inside of retail stores, for example) to the regional, national, or global.

Geographic education at all of these scales is important, of course, but the need for geographic understanding at the global level may well be the most critical educational need of all. As our friend Harm de Blij has said, "Ignorance of geography is a threat to our national security."

A new organization called  Connecting Our World is trying to build support for international education. Although the effort is not limited to geography -- foreign languages, for example, are equally important -- much of what the group advocates is of critical interest to geographers. Examine the group's Talking Points page for some persuasive arguments in favor of learning more about the world!