Interactive map allows RJHS students to walk across the world.
As Rachel Rummell watched Ridgetop Junior High School (RJHS) students scoot across a map of the United States attempting to locate places such as “states beginning with the letter I,” she spoke about the importance of teaching geography at the seventh-grade level in today’s global society.
That map was one of many provided by the National Geographic Society’s interactive maps program, which travels across the nation, as part of the society’s effort to emphasize the importance of geographic education on all grade levels.
“Geography is about more than maps, it’s about people and culture, too,” said Rummell, who teaches seventh-grade geography at RJHS, which was the first school in Kitsap County to host the program on March 19.
Of the four students searching for states that begin with the letter I, only one landed on Iowa instead of Idaho, and no student wound up on Illinois.
Rummell also is a member of the Washington Geographic Alliance, which stresses the importance of keeping geographic education in schools throughout the state.
Fortunately for Rummell and other geography teachers in the Central Kitsap School District (CKSD), the district’s administration and board of directors has gone against the grain compared to other districts in the state.
“Our district decided to keep it on the seventh-grade level, which is important,” she said, adding that the seventh-grade age range is the optimum time to expose students to the different cultures and people beyond the boundaries of the Kitsap County and Seattle areas.
“They’re just starting to develop their own ideas and form their own opinions for the first time,” Rummell said.
With a heavy influx of military families in CKSD, Rummell said the district has a unique environment that other less transient districts lack.
“We had one student who moved to Guam and we had one move here from Guam,” she said, noting how geography plays a role in helping students understand where their friends are as their families move around the globe.
The increasing use and reliance upon the World Wide Web and other technological advances have also brought geography to the forefront, she said.
“Students need to know where places are,” Rummell said.
