"Geography

suffered a great deal from the methods of teaching that were used when

I was in school," said Gilbert M. Grosvenor, chairman of the Society's

Board of Trustees and its Education Foundation. "When poorly taught,

geography is stiff and frozen, the stuff of memorization. When it's brought

alive, however, geography is one of the richest and broadest of intellectual

pursuits. It is also a vitally important one."

The Society

and local partners have spent more than $110 million since 1988 on innovative

education programs to make geography come to life for young people.

The Education

Foundation's many facets include a grassroots network of geographic alliances,

online resources, public awareness campaigns for geography and professional

development and mentoring programs for teachers. In 2001 the Society trained

about 33,000 teachers through the programs and institutes it supports.

Online offerings

include the Society's award-winning Web site, www.nationalgeographic.com;

MapMachine, an interactive atlas; and "Xpeditions," a special

geography Web feature that brings U.S. national geography standards to

life for students, teachers and parents. Other Society resources to enliven

geography in the classroom include a new classroom magazine, "National

Geographic for Kids," designed to improve elementary school students'

nonfiction literacy skills while providing high-quality science and social

studies content.

Each year the

National Geographic Bee attracts some five million students in grades

4-8 who vie for the chance to compete in the Bee's nationally televised

finals. The top three winners of the Geographic Bee share $50,000 in college

scholarships. The Society holds an international geography competition

every two years; last year 12 countries took part.

Encouraging

signs that geography is returning to the American classroom include a

surge in the number of undergraduate geography majors in U.S. colleges

and a steady rise in enrollment in graduate geography programs. The College

Board has, as a result, developed an advanced placement geography course

and test.

Reports from

schools are also improving. The 1994 National Assessment of Educational

Progress in geography, the first full-scale assessment of geography at

grades 4, 8 and 12, found nearly three-quarters of the 19,000 pupils tested

showed at least a basic understanding of the subject. About one-quarter

are proficient in the subject at their grade level.