Homestar Runner Wiki Forum

I read that many americans can't even point out their own country on a world map. That's lame, but I can understand it since it's such a large country and they problably focus on learning all internal geography instead of other countries and such.

I'm horrible at geography, but it's preatty much the opposite for me than for them. I can name and point out about 15-20 other countries and mabye a few of their cities, and I have a fairly good idea of where all the continents are (did a test in school some years ago, we got a blank paper and were going to draw a world map. I got most of the continents and bigger islands at their right position and they had fairly good shape), but I can only name and point out about 5 cities and a few of the counties, lakes and islands here in Sweden.

What do you guys and gals have to say on this topic? Are you good at geography? What do you think about geography in general?

I love geography. I am a geographical king. I won the National Geographic Geography Bee three times in my school district and went to the state finals once.

5000 POSTS!
*BTG does Hulk Hogan Poses*

_________________

I'm good at geography. I've never done anything about it, like BTG though. I don't think I'm good enough to go that far.

Congrats, BTG. Only 1000 or so more posts till you get to ramrod. I know, I'm good at ruining things.

_________________

I'm pretty good at geography, myself. I once got third place in Pennsylvania in the same geography bee that BTG was talking about earlier.

I really doubt there are too many Americans that don't know where America is on a map. We're the third-largest country in the world. Kinda hard to miss, you know?

I used to be able to name all the countries of Europe, but I couldn't tell you most of their capitals, and I always mix up the Balkans and the placement of Finland and Sweden.

_________________
beep beep I'm a Jeep

This one of the things that would make me start to hate Americans. A friend of mine moved to America, and when talking to an American couple she was told "You speak good english, being from britain"

If I was he I would roun house the couple. Then nuke a coupla of capital cities.

_________________

I'm kinda good at geography, but I don't like it. I find learnign it to be a waste, as I'm never going to use it after I learn it. obviously, knowing the basics is essential, but after that, it's pretty mcuh useless in any career I'd have in my lifetime.

Those are the kind of things that gets you put on a CIA Watchlist.

I am not going to deny that there are a good amount of dull knives in America, I think they are at least capable enough to locate the US on a map.

_________________

I used to be pretty good at geography (I went to a state geography bee as well). But I guess haven't kept up on it. I know North and South America plus the caribbean very well (well, the caribbean kinda well), and I know most of the european countries that are older than 1992. I haven't really gone and studied maps since the USSR and Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia all broke up. I know the names of most of the countries that came of those splits, (well I have trouble remembering the central asian states that broke off from the USSR) but I couldn't place them on a map.

I guess that's what I get for not taking geography since 8th grade.

I have a Bachelor's Degree in Geography, so yeah, I'd like to think I have a decent handle on it. I stuck to the "physical" side of Geography, but when it comes to some things like Determinism (which I think is bull) and Central Place theory, I'd like to think I can hold my own.

As for the whole map thing, I pretty much had that beaten into me in a class called "Geography 110: World Regional Geography". We had map quizzes in there where we were handed a map with letters, numbers, or symbols on them and asked to identify what they were. We would get a question like "On map 1, what mountain range is identified by 3?" and "What country is identified by letter V on map 2".

The Americas weren't so bad. Southeast Asia wasn't horrible either. Southwest Asia was ok. The ones that gave me trouble were Africa and "The Pacific"

Too many small, island nations there.

The final in that class consisted of questions from ALL regions. Man, that thing sucked.

_________________
If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

Good, that means I'm spared.

_________________

Pfft. I've been only for 3 years.

_________________

I really don't see much purpose to geography. Sure, you can point out mountain ranges and identify countries by their shapes, but unless some terrorists or something kidnap me and say "Identify the country with a coastline of 121,248 miles, or we detonate a nuclear device upwind from your town, killing everyone with radioactive fallout!", I will refuse to believe that it has any real value. Oh, and the answer is Canada, I think.

_________________

That's not all there is to geography, though.

It kinda sickens me when people say that. (I know you didn't mean it as an insult).

Geography answers two science questions, "Where?" and "Why?".

A lot of useful things have come from Geography. Planning (in the form of Urban and/or Regional) is perhaps the most important one. Most companies have a team (or teams) of geographers that are involved in almost every stage of building a new store.
Utility companies map out precise routes of sewer, water, gas, and power lines. Who do you think does that? A psychologist?
GPS satellites can tell you where you are with really high precision. While engineers figured out how to do that, geographers (in the military) figured out why they should.

So, yeah. Geography does have uses. The notion of "Geography is only about knowing maps and countries and capitals" is almost as dumb as saying "music is being able to play a triangle".

[/soapbox]

_________________
If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

I like to think I'm pretty good at Geography. I can name all of the American countries, most (if not all) of Asia, but it's Europe and Africa that give me some trouble. The crowded countries there mess me up constantly. Oh well.


You stole that from me, Jerky!

_________________

I'm good with geography, but I really hate it.

_________________

I'm not too bad at geography. I'm not heading to any contest in the near future, but I can hold my own.

_________________

Well, we learnt geography in SOSE(study of the society and environment) which I failed last year... so I guess I am bad at it.

_________________
NOT A SIGNATURE!

I haven't had a geography class since seventh grade and honestly I'm glad. Nothing against the teacher - she was awesome - but I just dislike geography. I'm okay at it, I mean it's not like I don't like it because it frustrates me. It just bores me. I could be making something explode in science class right now and you're wasting my time making me research Christmas traditions in Europe?

_________________

get LOST