This is a craft that must be taught, and I’m sure it is part of the curriculum of expensive writing programs, but I think there is an argument for teaching Worldbuilding in secondary school education.

The factors that one must consider in order to answer questions like:

1. What is the most likely place for human beings to live in?
2. How do geological structures form (mountains, lakes, deserts)?
3. How many nation-states are likely to live on a chunk of land?
4. How do those nation-states form? Are they likely to be homogeneous (same language, same culture, same religion)?
5. Considering geographical locations and cultural quirks, what is their form of government likely to be?
6. What happens when they’re technologically advanced enough to affect the climate or geography?
7. Where does their food come from? How do they manage waste?

Seriously, this kind of class would have had me hooked from day 0. Instead I had to slough through bored teachers trying to describe why the Mali Kingdom fell (with no reference to the magnificent libraries of Timbuktu).