“Young Americans Shaky on Book of Mormon Geographic Smarts!
‘The title of this article is “Young Americans shaky on Book of Mormon geographic smarts!” The rivers of the United States are the highways of the Nephites. The rocks, mountains, gullies, gaps, switch-backs, ravines, and hills testify of the Nephite and Lamanite civilizations. I feel like a “Rock Star” knowing about geography.
I admit when I was in school I learned geography because I “had to” but, it was easy memorizing so I loved it. Until discovering so many amazing secondary sources for the Book of Mormon, I am off the charts excited about geography. There is hardly a river in the United States that I haven’t traveled virtually on, from head to mouth. It is very cool to see where my heroes like Nephi and Mormon lived and defended here in the geography of the United States of America.’ Kevin Price PhD
Kevin Price Ph.D.
Thanks to Kevin Price who shared this article with me. He has spent his life in the study of Geography, Geology, and Agronomics and Kevin cares that we care about Book of Mormon Geography. Kevin Price did his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees at BYU in Rangeland Ecology and Ph.D. at the University of Utah in Geography specializing in biogeography (plant ecology), remote sensing and geographic information systems (GIS) (or computerized mapping and analysis). He was a professor for 3 years at Utah State University, 19 years at the University of Kansas and 6 years at Kansas State University. He has conducted research throughout the world and has been the Keynote or Invited speaker on drone applications in agriculture and natural resource management throughout the world at over 100 conferences. He served as a scientific advisor to NASA, NOAA and a former US Secretary of State.
Kevin is currently the Chief Emerging Technologies Officer for Air Data Solutions with offices throughout the US. He analyzes drone and airplane acquired imagery including natural color, color infrared, thermal and LiDAR. Kevin has emailed me (Rian Nelson) several times this week saying:
“In your article about the Red Heifer symbolism of Christ, I appreciated your reasoning for the importance of Book of Mormon Geography. I suspect all general authorities would agree the Bible Geography is important and would never suggest we remove the maps of the Holy Land from our LDS Bibles. Americans are mostly geographically ignorant which explains the suggestions by some that Geography of the Book of Mormon is unimportant. Any American who grew-up and started grade school from the 1960’s on, had a very poor teaching about geography. Naturally, if you know a little about geography, you will most likely undervalue it so do not be too shocked by those who make ignorant comments about a subject for which they have little education.
I took my first university classes in geography when I stated my Ph.D. I was never taught Geography in K-12. In 6th grade we had “Social Studies” and it was boring. It was not taught in a way that gave any vitality to it.
Geography was boring because those who taught it were NOT taught in geography, so they just shoved a book at us and parroted what was in the book. They taught from no personal training or experience in geography. But, when you went to the doctor or dentist, which was the first magazine you usually picked up to read – I am betting, “National Geographic.”
My students loved my lectures because I included a lot of personal experiences and did not just teach from the text book.” Kevin Price PhD
See Kevin’s exciting presentation about Book of Mormon Geography along with Wayne May, Rod Meldrum and Jonathan Neville at our streaming site here: https://bookofmormonevidencestreaming.com/
Young Americans Shaky on Geographic Smarts
Study finds that many fare poorly at finding Louisiana and Iraq on a map
NBC News WASHINGTON — Despite the wall-to-wall coverage of the damage from Hurricane Katrina, nearly one-third of young Americans recently polled couldn’t locate Louisiana on a map and nearly half were unable to identify Mississippi.
Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 fared even worse with foreign locations: six in 10 couldn’t find Iraq, according to a Roper poll conducted for National Geographic.
“Geographic illiteracy impacts our economic well-being, our relationships with other nations and the environment, and isolates us from the world,” National Geographic president John Fahey said in announcing a program to help remedy the problem. It’s hoping to enlist businesses, nonprofit groups and educators in a bid to improve geographic literacy.
Planned is a five-year, multimedia campaign called My Wonderful World that will target children 8 to 17. The goal is to motivate parents and educators to expand geographic offerings in school, at home and in their communities.
They will have their task cut out for them, judging by the results of the survey of 510 people interviewed in December and January.
Among the findings:
- One-third of respondents couldn’t pinpoint Louisiana on a map and 48 percent were unable to locate Mississippi.
- Fewer than three in 10 think it important to know the locations of countries in the news and just 14 percent believe speaking another language is a necessary skill.
- Two-thirds didn’t know that the earthquake that killed 70,000 people in October 2005 occurred in Pakistan.
- Six in 10 could not find Iraq on a map of the Middle East.
- While the outsourcing of jobs to India has been a major U.S. business story, 47 percent could not find the Indian subcontinent on a map of Asia.
- While Israeli-Palestinian strife has been in the news for the entire lives of the respondents, 75 percent were unable to locate Israel on a map of the Middle East.
- Nearly three-quarters incorrectly named English as the most widely spoken native language.
- Six in 10 did not know the border between North and South Korea is the most heavily fortified in the world. Thirty percent thought the most heavily fortified border was between the United States and Mexico.
Joining in the effort to improve geographic knowledge will be the 4-H, American Federation of Teachers, Asia Society, Association of American Geographers, National Basketball Association, National Council of La Raza, National PTA, Smithsonian Institution and others.
“Geography exposes children and adults to diverse cultures, different ideas and the exchange of knowledge from around the world,” said Anna Marie Weselak, president of the National PTA. “This campaign will help make sure our children get their geography — so they can become familiar with other cultures during their school years and move comfortably and confidently in a global economy as adults.”
© 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Rivers= Highways of the Nephites
I have studied for many years, the geography of the Book of Mormon with Rod Meldrum, Wayne May, and Jonathan Neville. We all agree on 90% of the locations which is good. If we agreed on all of the geography it would be boring and not as accurate. No matter what, any geography of the Book of Mormon must include Cumorah in NY as the only hill. The list below will also tell you some of the other important things we all believe.
For those of you that have been following my blog for the past year or more, have probably guessed that I make maps and love it. If you really want to dig deep and find out where Nephi may have escaped from Laman and Lemuel, or what route Mosiah took after fleeing into the wilderness, or would you like to know where the Mulekites met up with the Nephites, or the route of Ammon or of Limhi, or the possible landing place of the Jaredites, etc, you may want to study up. It is exhilarating when you study beyond just reading the Book of Mormon. Have you followed the archaeology to the time period of the Nephites in our backyard of the United States? Have you discovered Nephi’s cereal bowl? Have you studied the terrain, passes and passages the Nephites would have naturally traveled? How do the Hopewell paths match up with the Nephites and the Jaredites path match the Adena culture and who in the world is the Mississippian culture? How did we get children of Lehi all the way down in South America? How did we get Nephites all the way over in England? You are MISSING some GREAT STUFF fellow readers. As your teacher I am going to give you a test. This is a very important test. If you pass, it means you are a fanatically insane lover of the Book of Mormon. Not just a spiritual connoisseur, but a ravening devourer of Book of Mormon Geography. I wonder how many of you can pass this geography test I am giving you here today? You can download it and have your children beat you with their answers. If you don’t know many of the answers, study up, it is a lot of fun. You may even discover some things that Rod or Jonathan or Wayne don’t even know. Step up to the plate and let’s see how you do.
Download Geography Quiz PDF Below
https://www.bofm.blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Geology-Quiz-2.pdf
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