Whenever I am asked about how and when I discovered geography, I typically elect to regale my audience with tales of cross-country corporate moves or share stories of global travels. Explaining how my wife and I would spin a globe until it stopped and travel to where our fingers pointed always got a chuckle and a nod.

Those experiences and every one since have indeed enriched my views and knowledge of the world, while paving my path to a career in geography. However, when I completed my education and became a geographer, I began pondering what role geography played in society and asked myself how relevant it is today.

My own thoughts were biased and with each new semester, a new wave of students would remind me that geography is commonly perceived as the study of maps. And this is hardly untrue. We love our maps! We use maps all the time, but they do not represent who we are exclusively.

I would wager that every colleague of mine has been awkwardly cornered with questions like, “What is the capital of Botswana?” (Gaborone is the answer, by the way.) To us, that is kind of like asking a physician what that hard thing is on the end of a finger. We must assume they know more about the body than identifying a fingernail. Okay, bad example, but therein lies the conundrum: If geography is not (exactly) the study of maps, what is it?

Simply put, it cannot be easily defined. In fact, I refrain from trying to define it in both my books and classes, because it fosters more confusion. Instead, I offer a definition through the medium of questions. How has the physical environment shaped human activities over time? How have humans shaped the physical environment to meet our needs? What patterns can we identify in the relationship between humans and the natural environment, over time? How can we display these patterns by using geospatial technologies? This is the crux of geography and is a gateway to understanding its importance. But those who understand this are still a minority.

My private epiphany hit me when I sat down one rainy day to read a book about Lewis and Clark. The book begins with a letter of instructions written by President Thomas Jefferson. As I was reading it, I practically fell out of the chair onto the dog.

These instructions were a geographer’s dream and I instantly had a man-crush. Jefferson ordered “… your observations are to be taken with great pains and accuracy to be entered distinctly, and intelligibly for others as well as yourself, to comprehend all elements necessary, with the aid of the usual tables to fix the latitude and longitude of the places at which they were taken.” He went on to instruct them to “endeavor to make yourself acquainted with (Native Americans) by … admitting their languages, traditions, monuments … ordinary occupations in agriculture, fishing, hunting, wars, and arts, and peculiarities of their laws, customs, and dispositions.”

A president stressing attentive observation and accurate measurements of both physical landscapes and regional cultures in order to achieve a better spatial understanding of the new country? Not to mention, he considered future generations, too! That is applied geography.

At the same time, these instructions revealed to me a hard truth that somewhere between Thomas Jefferson and today, we have lost our desire or capacity to think this way. This is a real concern, because if true, geography has become decoupled from our values and decision-making paradigms in America. This had to be examined more.

My first book, “Geography Is Dead: How America Lost Its Sense of Direction” (2012), highlighted several important factors behind our collective disconnection with geography.

I began with a concept I call the “great buffer.” If you examine a map of North America, you can quickly identify the two giant oceans that have, for the most part, padded us from the scaled conflicts of Asia and Europe, over time.

Simply put, the United States is too far away, thereby making us an impractical and costly region to invade or even attack with large forces from abroad. We have never been directly threatened or controlled by more powerful neighboring countries, largely because of early geopolitical ultimatums, like the Monroe Doctrine.

Additionally, we have maintained highly capable military branches to protect us and preserve our political and cultural values. These are good things, of course. However, a side effect of this geographic distance and power has been a strong strain of insularity in our culture. Americans, though quite educated, lack a sophisticated view of the world, because we don’t really need one. I am committing academic sin by generalizing, but even Mark Twain was alleged to say, “All generalizations are false including this one.” Are Americans none the wiser? Are we easily swayed by emotion and charisma, because we have not learned the hard lessons other countries have?

To answer these questions, the book has other arguments that can help explain America’s disconnection with geography and the kind of “spatial thinking” Jefferson employed.

One such discussion is the marginalization of social studies education in American schools. Test scores in language arts and mathematics are valued higher than other subjects like history, civics, music and the arts. Poor test scores in those high-value subjects led to the re-prioritization of financial resources, leaving other important subjects behind. Not learning these lessons in childhood makes social sciences feel foreign in college and beyond.

The book also addresses the impact of urbanism on our perceptions. Eighty percent of Americans live in an urban setting. Cities are the “built environment” and therefore obscure our ability to read nature’s cues and acquire a strong, even intuitive sense of natural processes. Water drains into gutters, wind patterns are disrupted by tall buildings, concrete and asphalt cover natural ecosystems, natural predators have been removed and millions of lights blur the shift from day to night. This human habitat is not natural, so we are not conditioned to understand nature.

Likewise, urbanism obscures our views of other cultures. Ethnic enclaves in cities often move into areas formerly occupied by others, thereby limiting their ability to showcase culture. Strip mall architecture and stucco buildings are covered in a canopy of advertisements in the language of the ethnic group residing there. That is what a passer-by sees everyday. Culture needs expression to thrive and urban environments often smother that expression. These are only a few of my discoveries identifying how geography has been lost.

Finally, I must address how geography can indeed be reintroduced into the mainstream paradigms and values, as it once was. To do this, I turn to the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Sweden as examples.

The U.K. has long understood the role of geography, from the days of empire to its current period of great change. The British have played the role of aggressor and have been the victims of aggression. They had to learn about the world, both geographically and economically, and through all their successes and failures, they kept geographic knowledge an essential part of their culture and education system.

Currently in the U.K., geography graduates are numerous and graduate programs typically offer two to four different master’s degrees, as opposed to some American universities that offer only one. Nicholas Crane, president of the Royal Geographical Society says, “This is a great age for geography. Very big questions – climate, poverty, disease, migration, water, energy, biodiversity – all demand geographical analysis, as do specific national issues in the U.K., like housing, social deprivation, flooding and regional development. As the population grows, and with pressures on the Earth’s systems increasing, geography has never been so important.”

The Dutch can also remind us that applied geography has a place, with their continual innovation of systems, designs and technologies that allow them to live smartly and help them adapt to a changing climate. The Swedes, in addition to dozens of meaningful environmental contributions, impressively manage their woodland resources so well that they offset the carbon footprint of their various industries.

This is the power of geography. This is applying geography into every aspect of society, just as Thomas Jefferson did. But all this begins with curiosity. Want to know more? Take a geography class and discover the world again!

Brian McCabe, a Cal State Fullerton geography alumnus, is a lecturer in the university’s Department of Geography. He has previously worked with the California State Board of Education to revise the state history and social science framework.