Our Journey to Educate Children about Geography
Sandy and Darren Van Soye are traveling the wold educating children about geography.
April 10, 2012
by Sandy and Darren Van Soye
We decided to put our lives on hold to educate 55,000 students about the world’s grand procession of countries and cultures by devoting 424 days to cover 50 countries and six continents. By ship, rail, bus and by foot, we fly only when absolutely necessary, so we can experience the world on a human level. Then, we relay what we’ve discovered to K-12 youth around the world who are following our travels to learn about world geography.
We’re seasoned travelers, but this journey is on a scale we’ve never attempted before. Last March, we decided to do it after seeing how travel shaped our college-aged daughters, who have gone on to select majors that focus on international affairs. It’s also clear to us that geography is a foreign subject for so many American students as statistics show their
knowledge is well below average.
Also, we couldn’t stop thinking of a four-month world trip we took with our girls in 2003. Their entire middle school tracked our journey and bombarded us with questions when we returned. We wanted to formalize that experience by recruiting teachers and creating lesson plans, and to our amazement, 800-plus classrooms, representing more than 55,000 students in 20 countries, have signed up! We’re tweeting, posting on Facebook, updating our website, taking questions and posting pictures and videos to share our experiences. It’s been a busy trip so far!
Right now, as this blog posts, we’ve just disembarked Ocean Princess in Singapore and are about to start our land trek in Asia. Although we’ve already been gone more than two months, it seems like just yesterday we departed San Diego aboard Pacific Princess to head across the Pacific Ocean. The days leading up to the trip were a nerve-wracking blend of fear and excitement. What kept us up at night the most was the fear that we’d forget to pack the correct chargers and adapters for our laptops, cameras and phones. As IT professionals (retired or on hiatus, we aren’t yet sure), we know how imperative it is to have the right tools to create lesson plans and communicate with students.
The night before we left, we had dinner with our daughters and both sets of our parents. It’s going to be so hard to be away from Lauren, 21, and Kristen, 18. But Sandy’s parents live nearby and our daughters have assured us they’ll be okay. We talked about how happy we’ll be when we meet them this summer in Germany.
On the first segment of our journey on Pacific Princess and on this leg on Ocean Princess we’re savoring the abundance of good food, working out in the gym and dropping books from laps as we doze on deck chairs. In contrast, the next portions of our trek will be extremely rugged. We’ve already experienced some of these challenging overland days. Between the two cruises we spent three weeks in Australia. The highlight of that time was a seven-day bushwalk on the island of Tasmania called the Overland Track. On this beautiful 50-mile hike, we pitched our own tent and cooked with our small gas stove (no stateroom steward here!). We’ll be taking 11 more long hikes throughout our world tour, with two being particularly daunting—one through Nepal’s remote, northern region of Mustang and another that will take us through Kyrgyzstan’s rugged mountains. We’re also planning an Arctic Circle hike through the northernmost backcountry of Sweden. All of our experiences will be shared with classrooms around the world in our updates.
Our luggage tells the story: ship-side bags contain captain’s table-worthy clothing, after all we can’t wear our polyester hiking pants and mosquito nets on board! Our two rolling duffel bags are geometrically arranged with backpacks, emergency rations and compact cubes of clothing, for much of the land portions of our journey.
We’ve already sent out nine education modules to our classroom subscribers on subjects ranging from our first port of call in Hawaii, to exploring the Great Barrier Reef, which we just visited during our Ocean Princess cruise. Each week we cover geography, population, nature, climate and hint about where we’ll go next. We also plan to visit schools along the way to tell them about our journey and to learn more about their culture. Already, while on Pacific Princess, we were able to visit a school in American Samoa. Next on our itinerary is a month in Southeast Asia. Then we’ll keep going, continuing through Asia, Europe, the Arctic Circle, Africa and South America.
Finally, in March 2013, we’ll return to the port of Los Angeles on the last of our five cruises on Princess ships—tired, exhilarated, eager to see our daughters and changed in ways we cannot imagine. At that point, it’ll be just a few more miles to go until we return to our Orange County, Calif. home.
To follow our trek, check trekkingtheplanet.net or find us on Facebook.com/TrekkingPlanet.
Your world trek is truly inspirational! We know all 55,000 students learning about geography through your journey are not just gaining a better perspective of our world, they’re also having fun following you along the way!
WOW! What a truly fantastic gift you are giving to students everywhere! As a former elementary school teacher (grades 4-5), what I wouldn’t have given for someone like you folks to truly make world geography come alive! On behalf of students and teachers everywhere, thank you for doing what you are doing…and obviously having a FANTASTIC TIME doing it. Students and teachers everywhere will certainly benefit from your travels and hands-on experience! BON VOYAGE!
How absolutely amazing! This is such a unique way to share your experiences with a bigger world. I couldn’t agree with you more that travel does change how we see the world. I only wish that I had been able to travel internationally as a young person. Since we began international globetrotting, our vision of the planet has certainly become more educated and enriched. I will look forward to your web postings and will spread the word to our grandkids.
Are you kidding me…what do you think you could possibly add? If kids want to speak with someone who actually lives in another country…SKYPE works wonderfully and I am sure the native insights will be fare more informative than a couple of tourists who have not been there before. Another self-serving American making an excuse for an extended vacation.
I think you’ve nailed it, Steve. I learned about geography all by myself without the “benefit” of following some tourists on vacation. I, too, have traveled to over 50 countries, and there is no substitute for native interaction.
As a former middle school teacher, I could not agree with you more! Two years ago, my husband and I traveled in the major cities of New Zealand and Australia, and finally realized the meaning of the expression “travel is very broadening.” We had many casual, but memorable, conversations with the residents of those cities. But, in no way, were we egotistical enough to blog to anonymous readers about the experiences we were encountering!
So who’s footing their bil??
They’re offering education materials, documenting their journey and maintaining a website. If they just wanted a vacation, then they wouldn’t have to do all this work.
I don’t see why it’s egotistical or self-serving to share your journey. As far as I can see they’re not really making any money off of this, so what’s the problem?
In any case, this sounds really cool! I like the idea of staying on the ground at human level. And I think it’s neat that it’s a mix of bus, rail and ship — goes to show that there is no wrong way to see the world!
In
In reference to a couple of posters, I think it is egotistical to assume ALL kids have access to Skype, parents who believe in travel and native experiences and/or parents who can afford to travel to these places. I taught high school in a lower income community and many of the students had never even left the city they lived in. So to them, this would be an eye opening experience.
This trp sounds amazing. Be safe and enjoy.
I’d take the same, actually: Chemistry, Biology, and Economics. I let dinisterested teachers kill any chance of my liking Geography or History, to my shame. Given a choice, I’d also have preferred Spanish to French, and it’s also a lot more useful in Real Life. Of all of the subjects I studied in school, only English and French are any help in my career. French, only because we never studied grammar in English, but did in French. I think that choosing a subject to help your career is the wrong way to think. First of all, I didn’t know what I wanted to do when I was 12, 15, or 18. I didn’t know what I wanted to do when I graduated from college at 23, and still don’t know now, at 33. I chose the subjects I liked best. I got fantastic results in the leaving cert for that reason. Same thing in college: I chose a subject that I found fascinating, and suspected already that I wouldn’t work with it for the rest of my life (and, in fact, I never did). When we moved to Sweden, one thing that helped me get my first job was a few months’ work experience as a bicycle mechanic!
I have mixed feelings about what they are doing. Certainly school age children will find interest but I think the teacher needs to do her homework and follow up on history etc of whatever is being posted and teach more about it.
I have been on a world cruise blog and believe me it has been very interesting. Don’t know where the info is coming from but they sure post alot if interesting things about the ports. I’ve been to several and have learned from the postings.( by the way they are on #9 world cruise)
Let people do what makes them feel they are contrubuting to society.
I am a Geography major and love traveling the USA, Canada and the rest of the world. I have always been interested in Geography since I was 11. I have completed 49 states, and will be doing a Hawaii cruise this October so finally, 50 completed! In addition, I have done the US Territories such as Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands. Do I have to include Guam? LOL. I completed a European cruise last summer. Anything to do with Geography just makes my eyes opened! Roadtripping and Cruising is the best way to undestand our world! We only live once, there’s only 1 planet all this could be done on. Next year, I plan to do Australia. All those frequent flyer miles sure add up to give me a free airline ticket to Sydney.
As a former Geography teacher and middle school principal I can report that most kids like Geography and working with maps. What you are doing is helping stimulate the teaching of Geography in a big way. Congrats and continue to enjoy your travels around the world.
The Captain of the Grand Princess needs some guidance!!!
Dear Sandy and Daren,
Congratulations, best wishes, you both have all my admiration for this wonderful shared adventure.
Please do not let the occasional negative response to what you’re doing dampen your spirits. The Sour Grapes comments about your endeavour are so depressing, what you have chosen to do in terms of educating students about your travels will forever change how many of the students will view the world for the rest of their lives. Your expedition slash adventure will force some be the spark that sets them in a direction which will allow them to live fantastically interesting lives. I know from which I speak since back in the 1940s and 1950s I was a student who was wonderfully influenced by a unique relative who did for both myself and my brother would you are doing for the students are following your travels.
I grew up in a large house in San Francisco, during world war two my parents rented a room to a very unique lady by the name of Dorothy Davis. Dorothy Davis was ahead of her time, she was one of those Amelia Earhart girls. In her youth she canoe triped her way through the lake country of Northern Ontario, as she got older she became a camp counselor in Algonquin Park, after college she went back and became a sailing instructor at camp Ahmek in Algonquin park. During her youth she was fascinated by books such as Richard Halliburtons seven wonders of the world, Van Loons Geography, Charles Lindbergh and we, the wonderful sailing adventure Yankee and other books of such ilk.
When world war two started she procured a private pilot license and then joined the wasps as a U.S. Army ferry pilot. It was at the end of world war two that Dorothy Davis took up residence within our San Francisco home. Dorothy Davis never married, continued to live in the same house with myself and my family. She was a godmother to both myself and my brother, but she was much more than that, she was a fantastic teacher and mentor. She began in to teach me how to fly airplanes when I was only five or six years old. She read all the great geography, adventure travel, and current events books to both myself and my younger brother. She devised wonderful board games which allowed my brother and I to study the world outside of San Francisco. The imaginary travels that we took while playing these board games set us on a path which allowed us to see the world and all its diversity in a way that other children of my age did not.
When I graduated from high school in 1961 I left on a trip around the world. I only got as far as a kibbutz in Northern Israel, but that trip was set in motion a lifetime path of discovery, adventure, and exploration. My life was not just about travel, but exploration in all areas of life—I am 68 years old now and have just returned from a month-long tracking expedition to the Amadabalam Base Camp in Nepal I would never have made this trek had it not been for the influence, so many long years ago, of my godmother Dorothy Davis.
Keep up the good work, what you’re doing will change the lives of many young people for the better, trust me.
Cheers —- all the best of luck —–and a really big Exclamation Point !!!
Hi professors,
Just a quick message to tell you that your actual project is just POSITIVE and required planning AND exchange with others. Your project involves youngers fellows and is the utmost in priority since they are our future, so better give them all they can absorb, in every form.
Even in this age of microbyte communication, more regular learning curve is still first rate in my opinion, communication with real people will always have an edge over SKYPE or the like (read: Both are positive though!).
According to my own various traveling childhood and immigration process from Europe to North America, I believe strongly that knowing the world opens to…the world to becomes, as a tolerant one for generations to come! Now, if someone wants to mix business to pleasure, who could criticize?
Excellent initiative!
The Frenchman from Canada.
We use the book You Can Change the World a children’s veoisrn of Operation World. We read the information about a country and then look it up on the map and pray for them. We review the countries they’ve learned, having a different child each time point them out on the map.I’d love for someone to start a monthly country themed night for families. We could taste some foods from that country, hear a speaker who is from there or who has visited there, learn some other things about the country, do a craft, perhaps, and pray for that country. If several families worked together it would not be hard to do. I just don’t have time to coordinate it, or I would. I could help, though! If anyone knows of something like this already happening, I’d love to hear about it.
HEY PRINCESS! GOOD JOB ON LETTING 2 PEOPLE DIE! AS A RESULT I HAVE JUST CANCELLED 10 SENIORS TRIPs .5 COUPLES. MISCOMMUNICATION MY ASS~
I don’t think I’d change ahntying really. I would have liked to have done Applied Math, but couldn’t because I made a mess of Math at Inter Cert. Applied Math would have helped me with Physics. I ended up doing extra subjects anyway, as the timetabling was a bit of a nightmare
To enjoy my LIFE
Cela a l’air d’etre une belle aventure cela peut etre un reve devenu réalité!!
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