Martin Casey Easterner editor

Values of geography and other sciences

My mother was a schoolteacher who liked to travel, so at an early age, I was driven through a majority of the United States. We lived in Missouri — pretty close to middle of these United States — and one summer we would drive west then north then east and then south; and the next we would go east and south and west and north. We didn’t have money for many hotels, so we mostly car camped. But I got to see a great deal of this country’s countryside and urban areas before I was out of high school.

All of that travel made me pretty good with maps. Too young to help with the driving, I turned navigator — studying the map and seeing where we were going and where we should turn.

I saw a lot of different geography too, and I think I developed an understanding of how geology tends to shape the people who live there. The travel helped me to identify with people from the flatlands of Kansas and those from the mountains of Appalachia and Floridians and people who lived in the Rocky Mountains. Here in Loudoun County, geology explains much of the differences between us here in the east, and those who live up on the Blue Ridge.

My interest in looking at maps also made me familiar with at least some of the details of the rest of the world.

Early in my marriage, my wife asked, “Where is the United Arab Emirates?” and I answered “next to Qatar.” She swatted me because I had not been even a little bit helpful with my answer — though accurate.

But I am in awe of Partha Narasimhan of South Riding — the 12-year-old Mercer Middle School sixth grader who recently won the Virginia Geography Bee and will represent Virginia in the 2007 National Geographic Bee competition at National Geographic headquarters in downtown Washington, D.C. Not only can he best me in questions about geography; he had reportedly been reading what anyone would call “heavy stuff” as a preschooler.

Loudoun schools are becoming well known for helping to produce good spellers and geographic experts and kids who have figured out how the stock market works. Many others are doing well in science and math and robotics and electronics and offering up their own ideas and concepts for new things.

As we tussle each year with our county and school budgets, we should keep in mind that we must continue to challenge our best and brightest youth, and expand their learning opportunities. To do less, equals missed opportunities, not only for them but for us.