National Geographic Roper has conducted geographic literacy studies of Americans aged 18-24 over the last decades, and the results are, well, a little scary.  Fifty percent of American young adults can’t find NY state on an unlabeled map of the US. Forty-three percent think Australia is north of Japan. Why does this matter?

A 2014 study conducted by researchers at Harvard and Dartmouth found that among a sample of 2,066 Americans, the less likely a person was to know the location of Ukraine, the more likely they were to say we should invade it. The graphic depicting where respondents thought Ukraine was is … scary.