One of the burning issues that millions of Americans will be deciding on in the November elections is whether or not to support candidates who are either for or against the Contras or Sandinistas in - Norway or maybe it's Afghanistan. Or could it be Ruritania? 

According to a nine-nation survey of more than ten thousand adults that was done by the Gallup Organization for the National Geographic Society, this confusion is no exaggeration. The results showed that half of the American adults questioned could not identify Nicaragua as the nation in which the Contras and Sandinistas were fighting. Hardly surprising when one in seven of the same group couldn't find the United States on a world map! 

Particularly disturbing is the performance of young adults most recently out of school or still in college. Our 18 to 24 age group came in last compared to their peers in Sweden, West Germany, Canada, Mexico, Italy, Britain and Japan. We were the only country in which younger people scored lower than their elders. 

Here are some other examples of what National Geographic president Gilbert M. Grosvenor called "a shocking lack of geographic knowledge throughout this country": 

• More than half of the U.S. adults couldn't find Japan on a map. 

• Thirty-two percent did not know a single member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. 

• On an outline map the average American could identify fewer than six often U.S. states. 

• Asked to identify 16 locations on a map, Americans averaged 8.6 correct answers compared to 11. 6 by the top-scoring Swedes. 

The sad news isn't confined to questions about distant places. On the down-to-earth practical matter of reading a map, more than one third couldn't pick out the westernmost city or figure out the distance between two towns given a mileage scale. 

The usual critics deny the need of a commonly shared "cultural literacy" or be quick to dismiss such results as just another example of a pointless trivial-pursuits parlor game. But such gaps in our citizens' knowledge have grave implications for a democratic society. When 16% of our population think that the Soviet Union is a member of NATO and 11% believe that the U.S. is one of the Warsaw Pact nations - and only 32% know that Poland is a member - it's difficult to imagine an intelligent public debate over serious issues. Some people may shrug and say, "Let's leave geopolitics to the experts." But democracies, if anything, are about broad, public participation. 

As usual, there's no lack of theories about what went wrong. The survey does show that education makes a difference. Those who went farthest in school got the highest scores. But, as a recent Washington Post editorial observed, "part of the problem is that nobody ... seems to have thought out exactly what geography is." Many educators thought that it would somehow get covered hit or miss in social studies or history. Only two states actually require a geography course in secondary schools for graduation, and one report has it that only about 10% of the teachers who teach the course majored in the subject in college. Certainly no one wants to go back to rote memorization of capital cities or longest rivers just to improve test scores. Geography is more than that. As the National Geographic Society defines it, "Geography deals with the varied and complex environments of the Earth. It gives meaning to location and establishes a context for understanding the connections among places." 

The bright side is that part of the basis for change may already have been established. The Society has given solid backing to its faith in education as the key improvement. Last month, 64 teachers from all over the country attended its 3rd annual Summer Geography Institute to study innovative methods of teaching geography. Participants will go back to their districts and give three workshops to their colleagues on what they learned during the summer. The Society estimates that this will reach another 3, 900 teachers, networking to affect as many as a half million students. This year, to keep up with new technology, the Institute added a computer laboratory that gave teachers hands-on experience with the latest education software in the field. 

In addition, this past January, to mark its 100th anniversary, the Society established an Education Foundation with a start-up fund of $20 million, with another $20 million set aside to match contributions from organizations or individuals. In its first year, the Foundation has sponsored 22 teacher training institutes and several curriculum conferences. 

Geography, like all other subjects, can be made exciting. A recent British television documentary commemorating the 400th anniversary of the Spanish Armada made it something close to a cliflhanger. Would the Spanish fleet make it to the safety of the Isle of Wight before the tide turned? It didn't, and I doubt that many viewers will forget how history was changed by the powerful current of the Solent that separates the island from the mainland. 

That's the kind of excitement that the Society hopes is infectious. One participant at this year's summer institute, an Alabama elementary school teacher, has definitely caught the bug. "Give me a scrap of carpet," she said, "and a child who's never been anywhere, and climb aboard for the magic voyage. I'm handing out tickets to Somewhere." 

According to the latest Gallup survey, that's definitely one trip that's necessary.