The Geography Department will be celebrating Geography Awareness Week Nov. 16-22. This year’s annually selected theme by National Geographic is “The Future of Food.”
The week will kick off with a special trivia night at Patrick’s on Third on Tuesday at 7 p.m.
“One round will be geography questions and we’ll have a group of students and faculty going to trivia that night,” Department Chair and Geography Professor Anna Versluis said.
“The theme focuses on how geography allows us to effectively produce and distribute food for our quickly growing population,” Senior Geography Major Kristine Molde said.
“Geography connects the physical sciences with the human relationship with the environment.”—Katie Feterl
On Friday, the Geography Department will be partnering with Dining Service to help educate students about where their food comes from. They will take the ingredients of a typical meal and showcase where the food was grown and how far it has traveled.
“We don’t know what the meal is yet, but I’m excited to find out,” Senior Geography Major Katie Feterl said. “We’ve requested an average Caf meal, so it will be interesting to see how far these things come from,” Versluis said.
“We also have a guest speaker coming on Friday afternoon. The speaker is from St. Cloud State and will be talking about current affairs in Russia and Ukraine,” Versluis said.
On Saturday, there will be a Geocaching event starting at 1 p.m. in the Linnaeus Arboretum. There will be prizes at each cache, in addition to hot cocoa and cider in the Interpretive Center.
“Geocaching will be really cool for anyone who likes getting outdoors. We’ll be using GPS to find a location outside and then finding a prize,” Molde said.
Those within the Geography Department make a point of emphasizing that geography is not what many people expect.
“Most people think of capitals and rivers and identifying countries on the maps, and, while that has its place, geography, frankly, is a lot more interesting than that,” Versluis said. “We hope to increase awareness about geography, and to let students know that it is a major at Gustavus, and there are classes you can take.”
Students echo their professors in the effort to show that geography has more to offer than map memorization.
“Geography wasn’t something I would have considered when I came here. I thought of it as capitals, but it’s so much more interdisciplinary than I would have expected,”Feterl said. “It connects the physical sciences with the human relationship with the environment.”
“Geography Awareness Week aims to raise excitement and awareness about geography as both a field of study and a part of everyday life.”—Kristine Molde
In addition to the events being hosted, the Geography Department hopes that the week will help to bring attention to the effects of geography that students experience regularly.
“A lot of people don’t realize their impact as global citizens or know much about geography in general, so Geography Week encourages people to think and learn about geography and how we’re affected by it,” Molde said. “Geography Awareness Week aims to raise excitement and awareness about geography as both a field of study and a part of everyday life.”
-Kaity Young