Kurt Butefish

Geography, more and more, has real-world and every-day applications for all Tennesseans.

Kurt Butefish is coordinator of the Tennessee Geographic Alliance.

Geography is a discipline that has students examine the world from cultural, physical, economic, and political standpoints, but you wouldn’t know that in many Tennessee schools.

During their middle and high school years, Tennessee’s students will take five required history courses and no required geography courses. The courses they do take have names that begin with “History and Geography”, but if one examines the full titles and the content of the courses, it is blatantly obvious that these are history courses.

This is the case for the current Social Studies standards and those that are proposed to soon replace the current standards. Some argue that geography can be adequately taught in such hybrid courses, but that is not the way it is taught in any college or university in the state.

Geography and geospatial technologies, more and more, have real-world and every-day applications for all Tennesseans. They were used by TEMA, the Sevier County Emergency Management Office and any number of police, sheriff and fire departments to help get first responders to the fires in Gatlinburg and, maybe most importantly, they were used by these groups to aid in the evacuation.

The Sevier County Emergency Communications District relies heavily on geospatial technologies to constantly keep track of the location of people and property identified for emergency response.

All of the local utilities are using the technology to evaluate damage and reconstruct service to the area. Currently, local elected officials are relying on geospatial analysis to work with FEMA, TEMA, USDA, Department of Interior Park Service and others to tap financial resources to aid in recovery.

State insurance officials quickly got in the game. They are compiling insurance claims for a geographic mapping program that can help insurers determine where aid is needed in response to the wildfires.

It was a geographer, Dr. Henri Grissino-Mayer from the University of Tennessee's Department of Geography, who was interviewed by CNN and local news stations about fire history and the immediate and long-term impacts. In those interviews he talked about the human and environmental interaction that affected the potential for fire. He discussed how government policy over the past 100 years impacted fuel sources.

He and his students have studied and will continue to study the effects of the fire on the region’s forests and the regeneration of those forests for years to come.

Prior to July 2013, when the state Department of Education recommended and the state Board of Education voted to remove it, there was a seventh-grade standalone world geography course. In addition, world geography could be taken to fulfill a required graduation credit in high school, but that option has been removed and it has now been relegated to an elective.

As a result, many high school world geography courses have been dropped statewide. It is the opinion of many in private industry and the higher education and professional communities that geography should be required as standalone courses at the middle and high school levels.

While historians will record the Gatlinburg fire, geographers are studying its causes and effect and will use the lessons learned to inform and plan for the future. And let’s not forget the geospatial technologies that the first responders, TEMA, and the military utilize daily.

If all of these people understand the importance of geography and are using it to plan for and solve their day-to-day challenges, why can’t the Department of Education and the State Board of Education?

Kurt Butefish is coordinator of the Tennessee Geographic Alliance.