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I have been trying desperately to get the word out about the lack of geography knowledge in our schools. Please join me in the fight to ensure all American students get a well-rounded education!

Wandering Educators is a fabulous site to explore. You’ll love the wide variety of info and the unique writing styles.

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During the days when I was a travel writer, my head used to throb from an overflow of facts. Due to the deadlines I had, I would sit for hours at my desk and on the floor combing through brochures, travel guides and encyclopedias just to find that one fact or definition I was desperately looking for. I trained myself to speed read at an incredibly fast rate so I could find what I was looking for.

Now with the Smart Poodle Geography Program, Ask Lilly Badilly All About the World, I’m at it again. We have been receiving the most interesting questions! And many are challenging to answer. But I enjoy the process thoroughly. There’s nothing more exciting than finding the answer to a complicated question. During the process of looking for information, it is impossible not to absorb other facts I am not even looking for. It is all so fascinating, that I cannot stop reading and then find myslef branching off into new territory. There’s so much to know about our own country, never mind the rest of the world. And if you really want to surprise yourself, do some research on your own city and state. Unless you are already an historian, I guarantee you’ll be surprised about what you didn’t know about where you live.

I hope you are telling the kids in your life about Ask Lilly Badilly. Thank, if you already have. Keep those great questions coming!

Today I became a member of The National Council for Geography Education. This organization is dedicated to improving the quality of geography education, something we really need in the US! Spreading the word about our need for more of a geography curriculum is what really impressed me about NCGE. It supports educators by providing them with the resources they need to teach their students about geography.

Here’s what we can do as parents to improve our childrens’ knowledge about the world, and you DO NOT have to be a world traveler! Most of the travel writing I did for 15 years working for cruise lines was completed in my home office at a desk. I would never have had the time to write all those brochures with ridiculous deadlines had I been on airplanes and cruise ships all the time.

• Speak to your child’s teacher about geography lessons in the classroom. Find out what programs are offered. Let the teacher and school administrators know how important you think geography education is for every child. You might also want to ask what type of geography education the teachers a the school have.
• Find out if there is a geography bee in your community, and encourage your child to enter. It would be a great motivator to get busy and study the world.
• Fill in the geography education void at home. You can buy large wall maps of the world and the USA at the book store for very little money. Put one up on the wall in your child’s room. I play a simple geography game with the kids at the schools I visit, and they all love it - even if they cannot answer the questions. It is fun to learn facts about the US and the world. If a child has a map to look at every day, he or she will naturally be more curious about places near and far.
• Subscribe to National Geographic Kids Magazine.
• When you do travel, even if it is not very far, ask your children to write a travel diary about the journey.  That will motivate them to learn more about the places you visit and get the facts. Give them a travel guide about the area for reference, and collect brochures about the places you’ve visited.
• Look for writing/essay contests for kids to enter. (We had one here at Smart Poodle Publishing this year, and there are others on line and in schools.)
• Go to the library or book store and find books for children about geography, travel, and culture. You can read them together. Once a child reads about a place, he or she will likely be interested in learning more about it. And with a great big map on the wall, it will be easy to see where in the world it is located.