As a Driving Instructor, I come across lots of 17/18 year olds and am often surprised at their lack of Geographical knowledge.
Often they will have no idea as to where places are in the country.
I believe with sat navs/internet we are losing the ability or desire to look at maps.
As a youngster I spent literally hours looking at maps and taking in the information. I found maps fascinating.
Combine that with my interest in railways and football (both of which led me to travel extensively around the country), I built up (as did many others of my era) a thorough knowledge of the geography of the British Isles.
What do others think ?

Same as every other skill - the more the human race relies on technology to tell them what to do, the less informed we become. What's that old song? "In the year 2525. . . "


Paul

Quote from: Sprintex on November 25, 2014, 09:32:52 PM
Same as every other skill - the more the human race relies on technology to tell them what to do, the less informed we become. What's that old song? "In the year 2525. . . "

Paul

Zaeger & Evans I believe (excuse the spelling !!).

Technology reduces our need to memorise things too much , in my opinion.
Instead of keeping important telephone numbers in our heads we rely on 'Contacts' in the mobile. Fat lot of good when your mobile packs up
Kids can't spell properly and tend to walk under the wheels of traffic as they don't look what they're doing. If you removed the mobile from them I reckon they'd just curl up and die.
Oh heck - you've started me off now

Well yer going to really blow a gasket now, Mick...  guess wot? I've got me head down in a public place replying to this on me phone!!! 

Oh, and sorry about me speln spelling 

Quote from: port perran on November 25, 2014, 09:23:26 PM
As a Driving Instructor, I come across lots of 17/18 year olds and am often surprised at their lack of Geographical knowledge.
Often they will have no idea as to where places are in the country.
I believe with sat navs/internet we are losing the ability or desire to look at maps.
As a youngster I spent literally hours looking at maps and taking in the information. I found maps fascinating.
Combine that with my interest in railways and football (both of which led me to travel extensively around the country), I built up (as did many others of my era) a thorough knowledge of the geography of the British Isles.

Some 25 odd years ago (in that far and distant era where a telephone was still something attached to a wall or at best a car) my geography class (in a school in the Midlands) went on a one-week field trip to the Lake District. I remember being surprised at the complete and utter lack of geographical awareness amongsts my classmates, many of whom probably couldn't have navigated their way out of a paper bag with a map and a compass. I don't think much has really changed, except that mobile devices have brought delusionary navigational confidence to people who really really shouldn't be walking up that nice little hill with sheep on it.

The one thing that really honed my geographical knowledge was working as a booking clerk for BR back in the days when we had a proper railway. Even then many people had no idea of where places were.

Back in prehistory at a place I visited this year (Spur-of-the-moment Bealman thread), I actually studied geography at Durham University. We went on many field trips, and I still have a heap of 1" OS maps  published in 1970 to this day.

They are, of course, historical documents in themselves now, and are fascinating to look at. What many people possibly don't realise is that those maps were extremely useful geographical tools.

I spent many hours tracing out the Tyne, Wear and Tees rivers and their tributaries to perform complex drainage analysis. By placing a ruler across contour lines, you could construct valley cross-sections and profiles. The amount of information contained in those maps is huge!

I later turned my focus of attention to geology when I arrived in Australia, getting a degree in geophysics here at my local university. However, I still value the skills I learned back then, and those OS maps are treasured possessions to this day.

For a variety of reasons I grew up with maps - moved several times, a couple of long trips across Europe by car, and especially orienteering, which has left me with a fairly developed sense of where places are and how they fit together, and I love exploring new places *without* referring to a map. I never get lost (although there are sometimes occasions when I'm unable to reconcile my immediate surroundings in the broader geographic context ).

Quote from: Bealman on November 25, 2014, 11:40:18 PMThey are, of course, historical documents in themselves now, and are fascinating to look at. What many people possibly don't realise is that those maps were extremely useful geographical tools.

Wonderful things, OS maps, and I have yet to come across anything comparable in other countries.

I used OS maps extensively when I used to do SHF radio link planning. One of my more interesting maps is the Geological Survey Maps (North & South) covering under the skin of the British Isles.

Yeah, got some of them, too! And of course the older 6" maps are invaluable to anyone modelling a real location at a particular time in history.

Aren't geological maps full of pretty colours, though. 

If when driving with my first wife we got "Lost" she would have a melt down, now with Pam if we miss a turning we laugh and continue on as in the UK you are never more than 20 miles or so from a helpful sign post the result of this we have quite a good knowledge the country south of the Wash who needs a Sat Nag

A classic was when I was driving from Auckland to Rotorua in New Zealand a couple of years ago and the sat nav was giving directions in a female voice, Mrs B said, "she doesn't sit and read all that into it, does she."

I almost ran off the road. 

The worse I have done, was years ago when driving some friends back to Tamworth from Milton Keynes on the A5 on a foggy night and I took a wrong turning at a roundabout just south of the Keynes and ended up going via Buckingham.

Was not pleased!