I lived in Massachusetts too - and my Mom was from there, should have remembered!
It can be fun to print out an outline of the US and have people draw in the states. It works especially well if the group hails from different regions. In my case my New England is drawn in great detail and proportion because I grew up there but my southern states are pretty vague in outline and position. You can pretty much tell where someone is from by the way they fill in the map.
@wis75 Vermont’s the one shaped like a V, and New Hampshire’s the one shaped like an N.
Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Kentucky are Commonwealths, although in these cases the difference between a Commonwealth and state is in name only. Puerto and the N, Mariana Islands are also Commonwealths but are not states.
Do you want to guess how long the coast of Maine is? Over 3,000! It sounds crazy until you look at the map in detail. Lots and lots of “fingers.”
@mathmom, Macau has its own currency. Hong Kong and Macau are Special Administrative Regions (SAR) not yet fully incorporated into China. HK and Macau are still in the 50 year transition period back to full Chinese control. Thus, the separate borders with customs and different passports and their own currencies. The borders are not fully open for mainland Chinese into the SARs. There are special laws regarding work visas and immigrating for Chinese nationals into HK and Macau - mainlanders can’t just walk in.
Forgive my digression from US geography, I think the door was opened for my comment. Our world is a fascinating place - I wish I as a US citizen knew more!
The is only one correct World map and New Mexico is not on it.
https://brilliantmaps.com/new-yorkers-world/
While true (Macanese pataca), most tourists just use HKD, which is widely accepted. Traveling in this area can sure use up passport pages quickly; in one day, I had 6 stamps for entry/exit to Macau, HK, and PRC.
@Momofadult I’m currently living in Hong Kong, but haven’t gotten around to visiting Macau and realized even though it’s so close, I didn’t actually know exactly how it fit into the picture. Hong Kong got a lot more press, but it’s a lot bigger. The bridge to Macau opened shortly after we arrived, but somehow, so I am reasonably aware of the whole SAR status, but have managed to remain hazy about some aspects of the whole arrangement.
My engineer stepdad likes to tell the story of how his college educated sister and HS teacher early on in her career once asked him “how do you know when the water is boiling?”
@skieurope, I remember changing money (US) in one of the Macau casinos for pataca! We weren’t gambling, just an easy way to get the local currency at a decent rate. Hong Kong doesn’t stamp passports any more, you get a paper “Immigration Departure Card” that is to be kept in with the passport. I don’t know what happens if you lose that, I’ve never noticed that it is examined. Everything is wonderfully automated.
@mathmom, the bridge opened during my October stop. I’ve heard mixed reviews on the bridge, but I noticed on both my October and late November trips that the Citygate Outlet Malls near the bridge entrance have picked up many more mainlanders coming in on buses than I remember from pre-bridge. If you have time, Macau is worth a visit, but I would take a ferry, procedures on the bridge are still new and the ferry is fun. Re the SAR status and final take-over, if you ever find a local who will express an opinion, it will be interesting. Strong opinions from many angles. I have stumbled into protests over perceived over-reaches of China’s current authority, but those seem to have calmed down for the past year or so. I hope you’ve enjoyed your stay!
This is a sad commentary on the state of education in our country.
Only if you can prove it’s not being taught. At the school I work in, you can’t. We do teach these things in more than one grade.
Otherwise it’s totally a matter of what folks choose to retain. Some folks care about geography - others don’t. For those who travel, more gets filled in automatically. For those who don’t care or travel, “dust” builds up on the neurons and they end up fading away.
I bet folks learned about Boyle’s Law and Charles’ Law in school too, but doubt few adults could accurately talk about them in conversation - esp compared to the group of 9th graders currently studying them at school. What about logs and exponents? Or mitochondria and ribosomes? I could go on…
^^ yes! that’s what i was trying to say something similar. we used rote memorization back then, but didn’t always talk about the relationships. Hopefully there’s both now.
Not really the best analogy. Certainly some things one learns in school are reinforced throughout life due to career or other events. Most people should have a grasp of Charles’ law if they ever played with a football or followed the news with Deflategate, even if they did not remember the details. Similarly, a person living in the US who has ever seen a newscast, read a news site, etc, may not remember the details/whys/wherefores of the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy, the subsequent American annexation, and eventual statehood, but should still be expected to know that Hawaii is a US state that cannot be reached by automobile.
^^^ But it is similar because most folks sort of know how hot air balloons work even if they don’t remember Charles’ Law by name or specifics. They learned that hot air rises. That’s most folks. I still come across some who don’t realize how they work even though they were supposed to have learned in school. It’s very akin to states in the US IMO.
At some point, one just needs to channel comedian Ron White and say, “You can’t fix stupid. There’s not a pill you can take, there’s not a class you can go to. Stupid is fo-evah.” (skip to 0:52 if offended by R-rated comedy)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDvQ77JP8nw
Actually, the history is a little more complicated. Vermont was originally claimed by the French explorer Samuel de Champlain as part of New France in 1609, well before the English established colonies in New England. (The name “Vermont” is derived from the French “les Verts Monts,” meaning “the Green Mountains”). France ceded Vermont to Britain at the end of the French and Indian War. From that point on, New Hampshire and New York both claimed it based on conflicting charters from the British crown, with Massachusetts also chiming in to claim the southern portion of Vermont based on its own charter. King George III definitively settled the boundary between New Hampshire and New York at the west bank of the Connecticut River in 1763, incorporating all of Vermont into New York. But New York refused to recognize land titles in Vermont that had been issued by New Hampshire. At that point settlers holding New Hampshire land titles took up arms and formed a militia, the Green Mountain Boys, to protect their property interests, and in 1777, after a few violent skirmishes with New York authorities and settlers, Vermont declared itself an independent republic, originally named New Connecticut. Neither New York, New Hampshire, the United States, nor Britain recognized its independence, but it was effectively self-governing until 1791 when it entered the Union.
The Green Mountain Boys fought alongside other Colonials during the Revolutionary War and Vermont was just as eager as the other 13 colonies to throw off the yoke of British rule and form a new nation, but because Vermont had never been a British colony it its own right and was not recognized as a separate body politic by anyone other than its own residents, it had no representation in the Continental Congress or later at the Constitutional Convention. Consequently, it initially wasn’t welcome to join the United States, which regarded it as properly part of New York. One prominent historian dubbed Vermont “the reluctant republic” because most of its residents would have preferred to be part of the United States from the founding, but they didn’t have that option.
New York finally consented to recognize Vermont statehood in 1790 after Vermont agreed to compensate New Yorkers who had held Vermont land titles issued by New York. But the larger context was that all the northern states wanted to add another free state as a counterweight to Kentucky, which joined the Union as a slave state the same year.
I’d heard of the Green Mountain Boys and Ethan Allen, but despite many summers in Vermont, I never knew any of this. That’s what happens when you persuade your US History teacher that you already know about the American Revolution and can you study the French Revolution instead. I know a lot more about Robespierre, Danton and Marat than I do about key figures of the American Revolution. Oops.
quotethat I need a passport to board a plane to travel inside the US.
[/quote]
There was a time when NM refused to comply with the Patriot Act, and the residents were told they would ‘soon’ need a passport (or other federal ID) to board a plane or get into a federal building. The State of Washington was another state refusing to comply, although ironically were issuing enhanced licenses;you either got a regular license you couldn’t use for domestic travel or an enhanced licensed which could be used internationally. The REAL ID law was delayed and delayed, and NM and Washington both complied.