The Daily Rundown’s Chuck Todd takes a look at the National Geographic Bee and talks with host of the bee and of Jeopardy, Alex Trebek. Trebeck tells Todd that Americans are woefully ignorant when it comes to geography.

Seth Dixon‘s insight:

I know some people who aren’t huge fans of the geography bee because they feel that the format reinforces the stereotype that geography is about memorizing encyclopedic facts about places (I support the Bee in part because of the tremendous visibility it give for geography on a yearly basis).  While many of the questions do follow that format, that is primarily because it is structured for the elementary and middle school grades.  In high school and college, geography education draws on that ‘fact-based’ knowledge set about places and fosters spatial thinking skills which our labor force lack.  This video reminds of the current state of affairs, but I’m glad to see this conversation being had in the media.   

See on video.msnbc.msn.com