Whether they realize it or not, every member of our modern society makes far-reaching decisions every day. A far-reaching decision is one that has impacts far beyond the time and place where the decision is being made. For example, when commuters choose between driving or taking public transportation, when corporate boards consider whether they should shift manufacturing from one country to another, and when troops in the field translate orders into actions, they are all making far-reaching decisions. 

While the impacts of any particular far-reaching decision may be small, the cumulative impact of the decisions made by millions of people is enormous. The National Geographic Society is working to prepare our young people for the far-reaching decisions they will face throughout their lives. To be prepared for these decisions, they must be able to recognize the far-reaching implications of the decisions they make, and they must be able to take those impacts into account when making decisions. This requires that they have three forms of understanding:

• How our world works. Modern science characterizes our world as a set of interconnected physical, biological, and social systems. These systems create, move, and transform resources. For example, in ecosystems, nutrients are created, transformed, and transported through food chains. Similarly, in economic systems, people transform natural resources into objects with economic value, which can be transported, used, traded, and sold. Every human decision is affected by these systems and has effects on them.

• How our world is connected. Today more than ever, every place in our world is connected to every other place. To understand the far-reaching implications of decisions, one must understand how human and natural systems connect places to each other. For example, in the 1980s, scientists discovered that the prevailing winds that speed flights from Chicago to Boston were also carrying power plant emissions from the Midwest that were causing acid rain in New England.

• How to make well-reasoned decisions. Good decision-making involves systematic analysis of outcomes based on priorities. For example, in deciding where to build a road, a planner will establish priorities for cost, capacity, and impact on communities and the natural environment. He will then predict the outcomes of different options based on those criteria, and will weigh the tradeoffs between these options based on values associated with the different criteria.

Geo-literacy

We call the combination of skills and understanding necessary to make far-reaching decisions geo-literacy. The three components of geo-literacy are understanding human and natural systems, geographic reasoning, and systematic decision-making.

• Understanding human and natural systems: A geo-literate individual is able to reason about the creation, movement, and transformation of materials in human and natural systems.
• Geographic reasoning: A geo-literate individual is able to reason about the characteristics of a location and its connections to other locations.
• Systematic decision-making: A geo-literate individual is able to articulate decision-making criteria, project outcomes of alternatives, and evaluate those outcomes in terms of the established criteria.

To be geo-literate is to be able to combine these three abilities to make decisions in real-world contexts. Systems understanding and geographic reasoning enable a geo-literate individual to analyze the options in a decision. Systematic decision-making enables a geo-literate individual to weigh those options carefully.

Why is geo-literacy important?

As preparation for far-reaching decisions, geo-literacy enables people to steer away from choices that will be costly for themselves and others. For example, individuals and communities bear preventable costs every time a retail business fails because of a poorly chosen location, a fishery is damaged by stormwater runoff, or travelers and deliveries are delayed because of inefficient transportation systems. In addition to economic and environmental costs that accumulate over time, like these, we also face immediate and sizable costs for geo-illiteracy in the form of loss of life from natural hazards, terrorism, and military conflict, and loss of livelihood from competition in a global economy.

While geo-literacy can reduce the costs of bad decision-making, it also provides the foundation for positive breakthroughs.  The hub-and-spoke system of modern air transportation, the introduction of high-yield, low-impact agricultural practices, the revival of urban neighborhoods, and early-warning systems for national defense are all examples of advances made by combining systems understanding, geographic reasoning, and systematic decision-making. 

Geo-literacy has important benefits across our personal, workplace, and civic lives:

• In our personal lives, making well-reasoned decisions about where to live, how to commute, and what products to buy can save time and money, protect the environment, and improve personal health and welfare.
• In our workplaces, making well-reasoned decisions about supply chains, infrastructure investments, and marketing strategies can reduce costs and increase revenues dramatically.
• In our civic lives, making well-reasoned decisions about zoning and public transit, about emergency preparedness and response, and about foreign affairs can increase our safety, security, and quality of life.

The National Geographic Society’s concern for geo-literacy comes from our mission. We see geo-literacy as providing the tools that will enable communities to protect natural and cultural resources, reduce violent conflict, and improve the quality of life worldwide. However, having a geo-literate populace is also critical for maintaining economic competitiveness, quality of life, and national security in our modern, interconnected world.

Because it is critical for economic and physical security, we need to address the need for geo-literacy at two levels. We must raise the geo-literacy level of all members of society to meet basic individual and societal needs.  At the same time, we must dramatically expand the number of individuals with higher levels of geo-expertise to meet the planning and decision-making needs of 21st century commerce and government. 

What can we do to advance geo-literacy in the U.S.?

Unfortunately, the components of geo-literacy are neither widely taught nor well-taught in our schools today. Both earth systems understanding and geographic reasoning cut across science and social studies as they are defined in our schools. In the sciences, earth, environmental, and ecological sciences receive the least attention in the curriculum. Social studies as a whole has been de-emphasized in schools in the last decade, and within the subject, where there is a disproportionate focus on dates, events, and individuals, little to no attention is paid to the functioning of social systems or geographic reasoning. In fact, the U.S. lags behind the rest of the world in both the quality and quantity of every aspect of geography. 

To strengthen geo-literacy instruction in schools, we must change both what we teach and how we teach it:

• Understanding human and natural systems. To improve understanding of natural systems, we should increase instruction of earth, environmental, and ecological sciences. Instruction in these areas should focus on the function and interaction among natural systems. Similarly, we should increase the overall amount of social studies instruction and move away from facts and figures to re-focus on how human political, cultural, and economic systems function and interact. We also need to incorporate instruction on the interactions between human and natural systems, which cuts across traditional curriculum, into both science and social studies.
• Geographic reasoning. To improve geographic reasoning, we should increase both the quantity of geography instruction and the attention on geographic reasoning within geography, as well as increase attention on geographic reasoning elsewhere in the science and social studies curriculum.
• Systematic decision-making. Finally, we should add instruction on systematic decision-making to the curriculum, and we should provide students with opportunities to practice decision-making in real-world contexts across the curriculum.

Of course, schools are not the only place where people learn. Geo-literate individuals report that out-of-school experiences have often played a large role in their education. People who understand the world as interacting systems were often first exposed to that view outside of the formal educational system—through literature, the media, or direct interaction with the scientific community. Many geo-literate individuals report that they learned to reason geographically in out-of-school programs like scouting and 4-H, from informal mentoring by adults, or on the job. Developing a geo-literate society will also require that young people have the opportunity to augment their formal education with out-of-school learning experiences in organized, facilitated settings, such as museums and after-school programs, and in casual community, family, and peer settings.