This ERIC Digest discusses "Geography for Life: National Geography Standards 1994." The standards specify what students in U.S. schools should learn and be able to do with regard to geography. There are six essential elements of geography into which 18 standards are grouped: (1) the world in spatial terms; (2) places and regions; (3) physical systems; (4) human systems; (5) environment and society; and (6) the uses of geography. Five skill sets for geography are presented with the content standards. The skills are: (1) asking geographic questions; (2) acquiring geographic information; (3) organizing geographic information; (4) analyzing geographic information; and (5) answering geographic questions. The standards make it clear that geography skills are the means to access and address the content in the standards. The five skills and suggestions for their inclusion focus upon critical thinking and incorporate such processes as knowing, inferring, analyzing, judging, hypothesizing, generalizing, predicting, and decision making. While the skills are clearly identified, they must be integrated within the numerous content standard suggestions across the students' K-12 experiences. This Digest lists five reasons why geography standards should be used: (1) they reflect the scholarly contributions of geography to student learning in grades K-12; (2) constituent groups agree that the standards include what U.S. youth should know and be able to do in using geography; (3) they reduce geographic content to a manageable level; (4) they may be mixed and matched to provide for a content rich social studies; and (5) they will link all schools with common threads in the curriculum. Instructions for obtaining copies of the standards are included. Contains 13 references and ERIC resources. (DK)