THOUSAND OAKS : Teacher, Student to Take Mapping Trip

One in seven Americans is unable to find the United States on a map of the world, one in five cannot locate a single country in Europe, and one in four can’t point to the Pacific Ocean.

But Greg Barker, geography and history teacher and football coach at Thousand Oaks High School, and his student Ryan Berger, 16, are not among them.

Barker and Ryan were selected for project Marco Polo, part of a joint effort by the National Geographic Society and the U.S. Navy to turn those statistics around.

The society invited two teachers from a pool of about 1,000 nationwide to each pick one student to accompany them to Indonesia to study state-of-the-art mapping techniques aboard the Navy survey ship the Harkness.

Along the way, they will map the Pacific Ocean floor, both in deep water from the ship and in shallow water near the shoreline from smaller boats.

The project was organized by a National Geographic Society educational program made up of a nationwide network of teachers, college geographers and school administrators working to get geography back into the classroom, said Gail Ludwig, a geographer with the society.

Ryan said he was excited when he found out about the trip, “especially when I found out we were actually going to be mapping on a Navy ship. It’s not something we all get to do.”

Barker said he chose Ryan, an A-student, because he is “bright, articulate, interested in everything that goes on around him and questions things.”

Joyce Munden, a geography teacher from Springfield, Mo., and her student, Katherine Baird, were also selected for the trip.

Munden and Barker, who said he loved geography so much he wished he “could teach it all day,” were selected for their dedication, Ludwig said.

“They were chosen because they’re model teachers. They’re enthusiastic and they have each invested a lot of time in bettering their geographical knowledge,” Ludwig said.

Geography was lost as a single subject in schools after World War II when it got shuffled into the social studies curriculum, but it is becoming an increasingly important subject as U.S. citizens begin to look at things from an environmental and global perspective, Barker said.

“You can’t trade with the Japanese if you don’t know where Japan is,” he said.

“When we teach history, we should be teaching about geography also. The lay of the land, the place and the setting is every bit as important as the chronology of events that took place,” Barker said.

Organizers hope that Project Marco Polo will help to change the perception that geography is a boring subject and stimulate interest among students.

“They will be getting a hands-on opportunity to do something interesting with geography,” said Gail Cleere, spokeswoman for the National Geographic Society.

In turn, participants will be expected to develop educational activities and materials so other students can profit from their experience, Ludwig said.

“We are making an investment in the mapping future by working with students today.”