Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
retrieving them, by topic. Some new factoid about, say, peanuts will stick in their mental
mesh because it gets linked to clusters of thematically similar data, facts about circuses
and Jimmy Carter and peanut butter, which in turn links to Annette Funicello and George
Washington Carver, and so on.
But some of us organize the world by location.
“I wish I had a dollar for every time a student has walked into my office and said, 'I've
alwayslovedgeography,andI'vealwayslovedmaps,eversinceIwasyoung,'”saysKeith
Clarke, the University of California, Santa Barbara, geography professor who writes the
“Ask Dr. Map” column for the American Congress on Surveying and Mapping's Bulletin
magazine. “My theory is that these are people who reason spatially.”
Goodspatialskillsareeasyenoughtomeasure;everyintelligence testyou'veevertaken
probably had a series of headache-inducing rotation and cross-section problems designed
totestyourspatial cognition. Peoplewiththeseabilities arefarmorelikely thantheirpeers
to wind up in math- or science-heavy careers, even when general intelligence is controlled
for. They might be engineers, geologists, architects—even dentists, since dental exams ask
lots of spatial questions. You don't want your dentist asking you, in the middle of a root
canal,“Wait,whichmolarwasthatagain?Ican'tquite...canyouturnyourheadthesame
direction as mine?”
Machinesandmolarsmaycomeeasiertopeoplewithkeenspatialsense,butmaps really
comealiveforthem.Theyengagewiththemapinawaythatothersdon't.Theycanproject
their viewpoint right into its dots and lines and vividly imagine what the territory will look
like ahead. Christopher Columbus's biographer Bartolomé de Las Casas wrote that the ex-
plorer'sfirstAtlanticvoyagewasinspiredbyanauticalchartthattheItalianmathematician
Paolo Toscanelli had sent him. “ That map set Columbus's mind ablaze,” wrote Las Casas.
He did not doubt he should find those lands that were marked upon it.” Columbus was
clearly one of those people who could see a map once and enter its world immediately, and
it changed the course of history.
Not everyone has the knack, of course. If you've ever stood in front of a shopping-mall
map for ten minutes, craning your head at various angles in a vain attempt to visualize
whether Sbarro's is to your left or your right, you know it's a frustrating experience. *
People, especially kids, who have that experience over and over aren't going to want to
read maps for fun. They're going to avoid them at all costs. When cartophiles trace the
Zambezi River with one finger on a map of Africa, they can imagine rafting the river's
serpentine jungle curves, the roar of Victoria Falls growing to deafening proportions in the
sprayahead...butit'sjustnotthesameiftheriverstubbornlyremainsjustasquigglyblue
line on the map for you.
 
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