Picture the Continents

Over a year ago, I wrote the blog post, "Picture the World," to suggest how young people could begin to see what the world looked like and how people around the world lived. While I was thinking about how writers put together ideas for a TV show or a book by arranging notes on a cork board or wall, it occurred to me that blocks of space for continents could be assigned on a wall at home or on a black board at school. Pictures from various countries could then be placed in the correct continents to not only help kids visualize the world but also start some of them thinking about becoming foreign news, fashion, travel, or nature photographers.

With the Winter Olympics coming up early next year in Sochi, Russia, there soon will be a lot of photos to put under a wall's European heading. Blank spaces under other continents will motivate kids to scour publications for photos from around the world. Many used book stores have old copies of National Geographic that are a prime source of international photos. But any magazine, newspaper, alumni publication, brochure from a travel agency, or corporate annual report is a likely resource.

I have noticed more and more art museums are mounting exhibits of photographs. The Corcoran Art Museum in Washington, D.C. has an extensive collection of photographs, some of which are printed on postcards that could be used in a young person's own continental wall exhibit. Perhaps kids also could use photo copies of pictures from Home Truths: Photography, Motherhood and Identity, the collection of Susan Bright's non-traditional pictures of motherhood around the world, which was displayed at an art museum in London and is now a book.

Of course, children also should be encouraged to ask relatives and friends who travel to foreign countries to send them postcards and to take pictures that they can post in their panorama of the world. Should they be the lucky ones to travel to a different country, they should not only post their photos at home or school, but they should ask their parents and/or teachers to visit ngkidsmyshot.com to get information about how to submit their photos for possible publication in National Geographic Kids. Such an opportunity may be the beginning of a career that takes them around the globe.