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Media Highlight: Prof gives global perspective

Posted by Communications and Marketing on November 25, 2013 in Media Highlights

From Friday's Chronicle Herald:

Somalia. Tokyo. Beijing.

Students today may know how to find these places using Google, but a pilipiliĀž»­ geography professor says they have trouble pinpointing them on good old-fashioned maps.

James Boxall, the director of Dalhousieā€™s Geographical Information Sciences Centre, says when he gives his first-year geography students a quiz at the beginning of the semester, they only get about half the answers right.

ā€œI ask them things like the location of certain countries that I think are most popular in the news. So, for example, where is Japan? ā€¦ Where is Afghanistan? Where is Iraq? Very, very basic stuff.ā€

And studentsā€™ scores arenā€™t getting any better. Thirty years ago, students on average answered about 70 per cent of his questions correctly.

ā€œTheir understanding of the most basic, basic elements of the world has been getting worse over time,ā€ said Boxall, who was appointed last week as a governor of the Royal Canadian Geographic Society.

ā€œI think maybe weā€™re relying too much on Wikipedia and Google Earth, where the technology will answer the question right in front of us. It trivializes learning and knowledge.ā€

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