I just finished reading the latest issue of National Geographic, a magazine I've been reading since I was 10 yrs old-that's 65 years. It was one of the best issues in recent months. The feature was bird migration habits and it included a map of bird migratory routes. The secondary article was about unique properties of the earth as opposed to the other planets. It outlined the 13 reasons why earth is uniquely suited to support life.
I used to (and still do) look forward to the arrival of National Geographic and it was especially fun when there was a large fold up map included. I still have many of them. Sad to say readership of NG has fallen off sharply as is true of many magazines. The internet is of course the culprit.
I used to bring all of my old issues of NG into my 4th and 5th grade classes. Kids used to use the pictures to write reports and produce graphic organizers. Not so anymore. Schools don't want them. The town library doesn't want them either. I did finally find a home for some of them at an assisted living facility I visit but many of them simply had to get tossed. After all, 65 years worth of monthly magazines takes up a fair amount of space.
I think it's a shame to see this happen. Fortunately there appears to be enough people like me who feel the same so that the magazine will keep going and the National Geographic Society can still fund important research projects. But how long this will continue is anyone's guess.
The internet is a great thing. I, myself, spend a fair amount of time on it. But so are magazines like National Geographic-at least to me!
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