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Geography Awareness Week and GIS Day help promote geography amongst young people and teach new skills
19/11/2008
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National survey reveals most people don’t know how many countries make-up ‘Great Britain’ or that Chinese
is world’s most spoken language.
Geography Awareness Week and GIS Day help promote geography amongst
young people and teach new skills
• Over two thirds of people (68%) don’t know how many countries make up ‘Great Britain’
• Half of people (51%) wrongly believe English is the most spoken language in the world
• Only a quarter (23%) have visited a local attraction or museum in the last month
• Britain’s ‘favourite view’ is the sea or a river
• Being able to read a map and use a compass rated more important skills than using sat-nav
• 1 in 10 people think Everest is Great Britain’s highest mountain
19th November 2008 – To mark National Geographic’s Geography Awareness Week and GIS Day, ESRI (UK) today announced the results of an independent research study ‘The World Around You’, which reveals that most
people don’t know how many countries make up ‘Great Britain’, or that Chinese is the language spoken by the
most people in the world. Many aren’t exactly sure where Leeds and Sheffield are and only a third have
visited a local attraction or museum in the last month.
The study also revealed the nation’s favourite view to be either the ‘sea’ or a ‘river’ with 41% of the vote
and ‘Explorer’ came top out of a list of preferred professions with ‘Banker’ in last place. And when asked
which subjects would be picked first if respondents went back to school, ICT/Computing and Maths came top.
However, technology has not yet taken over, with people ranking ‘being able to read a map’ or ‘use a compass’ above ‘using a sat-nav’ in a list of skills.
Commissioned by geographic technology company ESRI UK, to coincide with Geography Awareness Week and
GIS Day on 19th November, 2,000 people across the UK took part in the study which asked a range of
questions relating to geography, travel and education.
GIS Day and Geography Awareness Week are international campaigns to promote geography, inspire
future careers and encourage the learning of new geographical skills by both teachers and pupils,
areas of work that are also supported by The Royal Geographical Society (RGS-IBG) in the UK.
GIS Day (or ‘geographic information systems’) is aimed at showing students the vast extent to which
geographical information underpins daily life, with activities taking place in over 80 countries.
Many schools in the UK are taking part by holding workshops, assemblies and there’s also free GIS
training taking place for teachers.
GIS is widely used by government organisations and businesses to create interactive digital maps and
bring spatial information to life, and since September it has been part of the curriculum at Key Stage 3,
GCSE and A-level. The BBC programme ‘Britain from Above’ recently featured GIS technology, using it to
demonstrate geographic concepts such as location, place, space and scale. Pupils are now also using it
to question geographical data and study relationships and patterns.
“Geography helps us make sense of both our local surroundings but also the world’s bigger challenges
like climate change, war, energy and poverty. It’s remarkable that so many people don’t know some simple
facts like how many countries make up Great Britain,” said Angela Baker, Community Programmes Manager, ESRI (UK).
“What is encouraging is that Explorer came top in people’s preferred careers and that map-reading and
compass skills beat being able to use a sat-nav. The survey shows the nation knows less than expected about
the world we live in which is why Geography Awareness Week and GIS Day are so important to help inspire young people. New technologies in the classroom are helping modernise geography – making it more relevant to
children and helping them develop new marketable skills.”
GIS Day activities:
A whole range of events are taking place in the UK on GIS Day, including the free training of over 30
schools in the use of GIS, by teachers at two of the country’s leading users of GIS: The Grammar School
at Leeds and Lady Hawkins School in Herefordshire. Other projects include workshops and activities to teach
students new investigative techniques using GIS software. For example, sixth form science and geography
students from Oxfordshire Independent and State Schools will be using digital mapping to identify the best
sites for wind farms in the UK.
Dr Rita Gardner, Director of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) added:
“The poll raises some questions about how engaged people are with the many geographical issues in the wider
world and about geographical factual knowledge. It is particularly encouraging to see that the sample survey
recognises map-reading – at the core of all good geography whether in schools or in our daily lives – as
an important geographical skill. If you can read a map you can work out whereplaces are without needing to
remember such factual detail. However, there are wider geographical issues of much greater importance to our
futures. In the coming years climate change, food and water security will differ in their effects in different
places across the world, further exacerbating world tensions. Geography lies at the heart of understanding,
predicting and helping to find solutions to those challenges, and to natural disasters such as hurricanes,
many of which transcend national boundaries. Understanding such issues and how we can tackle them is,
in my view, more important than remembering whether or not Leeds lies to the north of Sheffield. Good
geographical knowledge and skills are vital for all of us, as responsible citizens, if we are to fully
understand the nature of change in the world’s people, places and environments.”
Some key findings in more detail...
When asked how many countries make up ‘Great Britain’, 68% wrongly chose four. Only 22% selected three,
the correct answer (England, Scotland and Wales). 6% said five countries, 3% one, and 2% chose two.
Over half (51%) thought English was the language spoken by the largest number of people in the world,
with 37% picking Mandarin Chinese as the right answer. 10% selected Spanish and 1% Arabic.
Great Britain’s favourite view with 41% of votes was River/Sea, when respondents were asked what view they
would most like to have from their house. Countryside/fields came second with 33%, followed by Mountains
with 15%, ‘Don’t Mind’ with 7% and Street/houses came last with 6%.
Only 20% of people had visited a town/city they’d never been to before in the last month, while only 23%
had visited a local attraction/museum in the same timeframe.
Respondents were asked what profession they would most like to be out of list of six. Results were as
follows: 23% Explorer, 22% Doctor, 16% Painter/artist, 15% Teacher, 14% Journalist, 11% Banker.
When asked to rank a list of UK cities in the order they’re located from north to south, only 53% correctly
placed Leeds as the second most northerly, while only 54% correctly placed Sheffield in third place.
The cities listed were Newcastle, Leeds, Sheffield, Birmingham and Luton. 81% correctly placed Newcastle as
most northerly and 80% correctly placed Luton as most southerly.
About the survey:
The research was conducted online in November 2008 by Your Say Pays, a research panel operated by
The Leadership Factor, the UK’s leading source of customer satisfaction data. The Your Say Pays panel
collects classification data on respondents including gender, age, region and household income. Results
are provided to give feedback from a representative sample of the UK population.
About GIS Day:
GIS Day provides an international forum for users of geographic information systems (GIS) technology to
demonstrate real-world applications that are making a difference in our society. More than 80 countries will
participate in holding local events such as corporate open houses, hands-on workshops, community expos,
school assemblies, and more.
For more information about supporters, resources and events, please visit www.gisday.com and www.esriuk/gisday
About ESRI (UK)
ESRI develops software which helps organisations make better decisions through the management and analysis of any type of geographic or location-based information – ESRI’s powerful digital mapping brings spatial data to life. The company’s software is running on more than one million desktop computers and thousands of web and enterprise servers, providing the backbone for the world’s mapping and spatial analysis needs.
The world’s fourth largest privately-owned software company, ESRI was founded in 1969 and is the world’s
largest company dedicated to creating GIS (geographic information systems) software. Operating in 150
countries with over 4,000 staff, ESRI has more than 350,000 customers and revenues of $660m (2006 fig).
UK customers include the Environment Agency, The AA, Ministry of Defence, Ordnance Survey, RSA Group,
Manchester Airport, Scottish Power and the Met Police.
For more information please visit www.esriuk.com
About RGS-IBG
The Royal Geographical Society with The Institute of British Geographers is the learned society and professional
body representing geography and geographers. It was founded in 1830 and has been one of the most active of the learned societies ever since. It was pivotal in establishing geography as a teaching and research discipline
in British universities, and has played a key role in geographical and environmental education ever since.
Today the Society is a leading world centre for geographical learning – supporting education, teaching,
research and scientific expeditions, as well as promoting public understanding and enjoyment of geography.
www.rgs.org
For further information contact:
Ruth Adams, ESRI (UK): 07515 330374
Ian Pearson, Lucre Communications: 07799 412 572
