WHY GEOGRAPHY IS IMPORTANT?
1. Cultural awareness
Inevitably, anything concerning Geography and the Environment will involve human behavior, and the extent to which this behavior differs in regards to the environment. By studying the geography of a country, you can start to understand why certain cultures farm certain crops, or why a particular set of people design their houses in a particular way. By being exposed to a world of drastically different people, a budding Geographer or Environmental Scientist experiences the rich tapestry of human life.
2. Geography and the environment is important to mankind
Despite living in an increasingly modern and seemingly manufactured world, mankind will forever rely on the environment. Whether it is the ability to grow crops, the capability to stock-pile water or the power to pre-empt natural disasters, the study of our environment and the geography of the planet plays a vital role. By studying the patterns of our planet we may be able to predict potential hazards in the future and therefore help to implement precautions to avoid such results, such as global warming.
3. History
Learning geography allows you to identify and appreciate important clues of your nation’s history, including the influence of land forms and climate on land use, the rise and fall of civilizations, and migration patterns, among other things. Knowing the history of the landscape helps you understand the transformation processes that have taken place.
4. Develop Non-Fiction Reading Skills
Studying geography develops non-fiction reading skills. Geography uses complex visual representations such as maps, pictures, charts, and graphs that must be interpreted depending on the purpose. Students of geography must use higher order thinking skills to analyze and synthesize information. Studying geography also naturally develops a working knowledge of how to read and process non-fiction text features since those features are woven throughout all aspects of the content. Finally, studying geography builds important vocabulary and background knowledge about our country and world too. If you want to build non-fiction reading skills, geography is a great resource.
5. Better equipped to deal with the challenges of the future
The study of geography influences every aspect of our world. The future is being shaped by a plethora of forces and to adequately face the challenges of the future, you’ll be better off if you have knowledge of geography. Everything from politics, climate change, and business is being shaped by geographical factors.
6. You’ll Get to Dabble in a Variety of Subjects
One of the fantastic things about geography is that it merges together numerous different subjects under it’s one head. You’ll get to learn a little bit about everything from physics, biology, economics, sociology, politics, art, political science, chemistry, history, and more!
If you were ever worried about limiting yourself in terms of what you could study, you can put all those fears to rest if you choose to study geography.
7. Geographers can truly make a difference to the world
‘Geography is enormously important because it teaches a spatial perspective that is not available in any other discipline. It is also uniquely synthetic, bringing together the physical dimensions of the environment with the human side of things and, in this exercise, can offer unique and vital solutions to many of the local and more global problems – of uneven development, socio-spatial inequality, building sustainable environments, and so on. There are also tools that are unique to the discipline, such as Geographic Information Systems and cartography, as well as others around “reading” landscapes and data presentation, which make it uniquely placed to assist in analyzing and addressing local, regional and global problems.’
