Exploring World Geography (Notgrass)

Exploring World Geography is Notgrass Company's full-year high-school geography course covering physical geography, world regions, cultures, and political systems, with a literature anthology and Bible component that allow the course to award three credits simultaneously. It is frequently the entry course for families following the Notgrass high-school sequence.

Last updated: 2026-04-24 · Every Homeschool Editorial Team

At a glance

Method	Traditional / literature-based / narrative textbook with primary sources and travel writing
Worldview	Christian-evangelical
Grades	9-12 (most commonly used in grade 9 or 10)
Formats	Print hardcover text (two volumes), student review pack, anthology
Cost tier	Standard
Parent intensity	3 (student-driven with parent discussion; essay grading required)
ESA-common	Yes, widely on marketplaces that permit religious curriculum
Accredited	No (curriculum publisher)
Established	Exploring World Geography first published 2016; Notgrass Company founded 1994
Website	notgrass.com

Our scoreboard (1-5)

Criterion	Score	One-line reason
Academic rigor	4	Substantive scope covering physical, cultural, and political geography; college-prep level
Ease of teaching	4	Student-readable narrative; self-paced across a school year
Content quality	5	The strongest volume in the Notgrass catalog, rich travel writing and region-specific primary sources
Flexibility	5	Three credits possible from one course (geography, literature, Bible)
Value for money	5	Three high-school credits for approximately $140-$180
Worldview scope	2	Christian-evangelical framing throughout; Bible component is integrated, not optional
Visual/design	4	Hardcover textbooks with photography, maps, and regional imagery; most visually rich Notgrass title
Support resources	3	Teacher guide, answer keys, sample lessons, email support

Who the publisher is

Notgrass Company was founded in 1994 in Gainesboro, Tennessee, by Ray Notgrass and remains family-operated. The Notgrass catalog of narrative-style high-school textbooks. Exploring America, Exploring World History, Exploring Government, Exploring Economics, and Exploring World Geography, is among the more widely adopted full-course options in evangelical homeschool circles and carries a durable reputation on HSLDA's high-school lists and classical-homeschool forums.

Exploring World Geography, first published in 2016, is the newest major title in the Notgrass high-school catalog and is frequently the course families begin the Notgrass sequence with, a ninth-grade geography anchor that opens into the American and world history courses in subsequent years. The course is written by Ray Notgrass with editorial support from Charlene and Bethany Notgrass, in the same narrative voice that characterizes the full catalog.

Editorially, Notgrass is explicitly Christian and conservative. On geography specifically, the course treats human cultures and political systems from within a Christian-evangelical frame, the regions-of-the-world chapters include discussion of religions, cultural practices, and political systems with editorial framing from that tradition. The Bible component that produces the third credit is an integrated layer: students read substantial passages of Scripture tied thematically to the regions under study, not as a separate Bible course but as part of the geography curriculum.

The core pedagogy

Exploring World Geography is a full-year course structured across thirty units, each comprising five daily lessons, a total of roughly 150 lessons across a school year. Units rotate between foundational geography content (physical geography, cartography, demography) and regional surveys (North America, Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia, Oceania, Latin America, polar regions). Each unit includes textbook reading from the two-volume hardcover set, assigned readings from the accompanying literature anthology (Through the Ancient World and beyond), Bible passages tied to the region's themes, comprehension questions in the student review pack, and periodic writing assignments.

Scope is genuinely substantial: a student completing the course has worked through the physical geography fundamentals (plate tectonics, climate zones, biomes, major landforms), the world's major regions with meaningful country-level detail, and a literature sample drawn from travel writing, regional fiction, and primary documents associated with each region. The Bible component pairs Old and New Testament passages with regional study. Middle East study pairs with Exodus and the Gospels; Mediterranean and North Africa with Acts and Pauline epistles; Africa with Old Testament passages set in the region; and similar thematic integration through the course.

Signature mechanics: (1) Three credits from one course. The course's architecture allows a student to earn separate high-school credits in geography, English/literature, and Bible simultaneously when the full workload is completed. (2) Travel writing and region-specific primary sources. The anthology draws from first-person travel accounts and regional literature, producing a reading list that is substantively different from most high-school geography courses. (3) Narrative textbook prose. Students read connected essay-style text rather than scanning boxes; the style matches the broader Notgrass catalog. (4) Direct-to-student voice. The textbook is written to the student rather than to a teacher instructing the student; the first-person-narrator framing produces a conversational read.

A day in the life

A tenth-grader using Exploring World Geography across a school year spends approximately sixty to ninety minutes per day on the course. She reads the day's lesson from the hardcover text (roughly ten to fifteen pages), works through the comprehension questions in the student review pack (fifteen minutes), reads the assigned anthology selection (fifteen to thirty minutes, some days a brief travel excerpt, some days a longer primary document or story), and reads the assigned Bible passage (ten minutes). Once a week she writes a short essay responding to a prompt that ties the week's geographic content to its cultural, political, or biblical framing.

Her parent grades assignments against the teacher guide's rubric and discusses regional themes at points where the course raises contested or unfamiliar material, particularly in chapters on religions, political systems, or contemporary political conflicts. At the end of the year, a student completing all thirty units earns credits in geography (one full credit), literature (one half or full credit depending on workload), and Bible (one half or full credit). Families adjust the credit award based on how much of the optional workload the student actually completes, a minimum geography credit takes roughly 75 percent of the workload; the full three-credit load requires essentially all of it.

What they do exceptionally well

Three credits from one coherent course. The most distinctive feature of Exploring World Geography is its ability to produce three transcript credits from a single course of study, architected so that the geography, literature, and Bible components reinforce rather than fragment. Families with a ninth- or tenth-grader needing efficient credit accumulation find this architecture uniquely useful among high-school humanities curricula.

Travel writing as a distinct reading tradition. The anthology draws meaningfully from travel writing, a literary tradition most high-school curricula ignore entirely, alongside regional fiction and primary sources. Students finish the course with an introduction to writers like Isabella Bird, Freya Stark, and other less-taught writers whose work has a natural home in a geography course.

Visual and cartographic richness. The two-volume hardcover format includes substantial photography, maps, and regional imagery, the most visually rich title in the Notgrass catalog. A student who benefits from seeing what a region looks like gets meaningfully more support here than in a text-only survey course.

What they do poorly

Bible integration is not optional. The course's architecture assumes the Bible component; decoupling the geography from the Bible layer is possible but substantially reduces the course's coherence and removes a credit. Families who want a world geography course without integrated Scripture reading will find Notgrass's framing foundational to the program rather than supplemental.

Regional treatment leans evangelical Protestant in cultural framing. Chapters on religious traditions other than Christianity. Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, traditional religions, are written from a Christian-evangelical perspective. The treatment is not hostile but is framed from a specific tradition; families wanting comparative-religion content written from a religious-studies perspective rather than an evangelical framing will notice the difference.

Workload calibration is demanding at full three-credit load. A student aiming for all three credits is doing nearly two hours of daily work across geography, literature, and Bible. Families need to calibrate expectations, the two-credit or one-credit pacing is a legitimate choice rather than a failure to complete.

Who it fits / who it doesn't

• Pick Exploring World Geography if: you are a Christian-evangelical family wanting an efficient multi-credit ninth- or tenth-grade humanities anchor; you value narrative prose over textbook reference; you want substantive travel writing and regional primary sources rather than a textbook survey; you are planning to continue through the full Notgrass high-school sequence (American history, world history, government, economics); you can absorb the daily workload across geography, literature, and Bible.

• Skip Exploring World Geography if: you want a world geography course that treats non-Christian religions and cultures from a religious-studies or secular comparative frame; you are targeting a specific AP or dual-enrollment geography course; you do not want integrated Bible reading in your geography curriculum; your student is not yet reading at the level of a full-length narrative textbook; you are building a classical-curriculum sequence and want period-organized rather than region-organized geography.

Cost honest assessment

Per the Exploring World Geography product page as of April 2026, the full course package, two-volume hardcover text, student review pack, answer key, and anthology, retails at approximately $140-$180. The core materials are non-consumable and reusable across siblings, with only the student review pack needing replacement per student.

Compared to Masterbooks World Geography (roughly $80-$140 for a one-year course, similar cost-per-credit), Memoria Press Geography I-III (roughly $60-$120 across multiple smaller courses, classical approach), or BJU Press World Studies (roughly $140-$200 for a year-long course with more traditional textbook format), Notgrass sits within the standard tier and offers strong per-credit economics given the three-credit potential.

A realistic all-in family budget for Exploring World Geography is $140-$180 for one student for a three-credit year, with additional review packs at approximately $15-$25 for siblings using the reusable core.

ESA eligibility notes

Notgrass Company is widely approved across state ESA marketplaces where Christian curriculum is permitted. Notgrass is listed on Arizona's ClassWallet, Florida's Step Up For Students and MyScholarShop, West Virginia's Hope Scholarship, Iowa's Education Savings Account, and Utah Fits All. The publisher provides order workflows compatible with several ESA marketplaces. States that restrict religious materials will apply those restrictions to Exploring World Geography's Bible-integrated content; ESA-funded families should verify within their specific state marketplace before ordering, as some may reimburse the geography and literature portions while excluding Bible-specific materials.

Alternatives

• Masterbooks World Geography (Ken Ham / New Leaf), a family would choose Masterbooks over Notgrass for a young-earth creationist geography framing with a more explicitly scientific creationist underlay and different editorial voice.
• Memoria Press Geography (I, II, III), a family would choose Memoria Press over Notgrass for a classical-curriculum approach organized around specific regions or periods at middle-school level, with shorter unit-book structure and recitation-heavy pedagogy.
• Seterra or World Geography Flashcards-based approach, a family would choose a drill-and-map approach over Notgrass for students who need fact-mastery and geographic memorization rather than a narrative-and-literature humanities credit.

How we verified this

Our editorial team reviewed the Exploring World Geography product page, sample lessons, scope-and-sequence document, anthology contents, and company About page at notgrass.com. We cross-referenced against Cathy Duffy Reviews' Notgrass Geography entry and the HSLDA high-school curriculum directory. Prices and program details verified April 2026.