Students in Allyson Geary's ninth-grade class at Central High School in Independence, Ore., watch the Los Angeles Dodgers on television at home. But when Ms. Geary asked them in September where Los Angeles was, most responded with blank stares.
Alarmed, Ms. Geary turned to the National Geographic Society for help. That help has now arrived in the form of the 160,000 geography teaching kits that the society sent to schools earlier this month for use during National Geography Awareness Week, which ends tomorrow.
The week was ordered by Congress to combat a widespread ignorance of geography. A 1988 survey of 12,320 people in 10 countries conducted by the Gallup Organization for the National Geographic Society found Americans 18 to 24 ranked last in geographic knowledge. A quarter of the Americans could not find the Pacific Ocean on a map.