The scientific community needs to reappraise its actions and become concerned with the real world problems that threaten existence in society. These include world poverty, starvation, and declining quality of life. Geographers need to develop greater concern resulting in evaluating their research, curricula, educational goals and course content in light of the problems of human survival. Three tasks to be undertaken in equipping students for such problem solving are identified. First, geographers must learn more about research in other social and physical sciences in order to work towards solving societal problems in an efficient, interdisciplinary manner. Second, geographers must develop curricula which emphasize training for present and future problem solving. Third, geographers should reorient geography courses to focus on the complexity of contemporary problems. An introductory, college-level, human geography course outline is presented in five parts: (1) focuses on mankind at the turning point in his struggle for existence and explores the urgency of finding solutions before it is too late; (2) discusses geographic perspective, reasoning, tools for analysis, and relevance; (3) identifies and discusses local, national, and international spatial systems; (4) describes the processes which underlie human survival and spatial systems; and (5) summarizes the geographer's contribution to future survival. (Author/DB)