NORMAL - A Kansas geography professor takes pride knowing that he has helped save lives through his work with mapping land mines.

At the same time, professor Jerome Dobson worries misuse of global positioning system technology endangers people privacy and possibly even lives.

Such concerns show how the discipline of geography affects people's lives, but geography education is falling by the way side in all levels of schooling, he said.

"People think of geography as trivia for children," he said.

Dobson, one of the series of speakers in Illinois State University's ongoing sesquicentennial celebration, will shed light on some of the trends in his profession Friday in a public presentation.

Dobson is looking forward to touching base with former student and now colleague John Kostelnick, an ISU geography professor.

Together they worked on a program associated with the United Nations that established a world standard for how land mines are represented on maps.

On the other hand, he said he was "horrified" in 1999 when he was asked to work on a GPS project that would help parents track their children.

He said he sees the benefits of the technology, but he still worries about how it can be misused. Or example, a system used to track children potentially could be used by child abusers or stalkers, he said.

Geography education has virtually disappeared into what he described as a mishmash of subjects grouped together as social studies.

What he sees as the purge of geography as a discipline started in 1948 when Harvard University "abandoned geography," he said. By the late 1980s, no Ivy League university offered full geography programs, he said.

At the same time geography has been overwhelmed in many elementary schools by the emphasis on math and reading, he said.

Dobson, the president of the American Geographical Society since 2002, said there are exciting geography-related projects going on in the world.

For example, one is studying land reform in Mexico, which could affect the United States, he said. More privatization of land ownership could encourage people to sell their land and move to the cities, and that may increase illegal immigration to the United States.

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Geography talks

Jerome Dobson, president of American Geographical Society, will make two presentations Friday on the Illinois State University campus in Normal.

- "The American Geographical Society: Renewing Timeless Missions"; 10 a.m., 327 Felmely Hall Annex.

- "Restoring Geography in America"; 4 p.m., Bowling and Billiards Center, next to Bone Student Center.