Teaching About Meteors and Crater Impacts

Here's a nice web site for showing students the size and density of a meteor and the impact that piece of rock or ice might make on the ground (or in water). It's called Impact Calculator.

You can put in various parameters for the piece of "rock": diameter, trajectory angle, velocity, density of the rock material, density of the landing site, and distance from the impact.

Click Submit and you get the impact values. If you select a place around the world from the dropdown menu and then click on the map, you can see the size of the hypothetical crater. This is under the Crater Size tab.

Look at what you get under the Crater Depth tab. In the interest of this summer's revolving around all things UK, I chose Big Ben as a scale bar for this hypothetical imapct structure.

Saw this on a tweet by eSpatial.

Marine Turtle Migration Game

I like to point out geography-infused games on this page. Here's one I heard about on the Google Lat Long blog that crosses two of my interests: marine turtles and the Caribbean. The wonderful organization WIDECAST and Sea Turtle Conservation Bonaire have developed a game (thanks to Google Earth Outreach Developer Grant) for middle and high school students. They can choose a sea turtle and predict where it will end up after the nesting season for the chance to win prizes. It seems like the game might (currently) be only available to students on Bonaire) but here's the link to get more information about the Sea Turtle Game. Contact them. Maybe they'll see the demand and want to open the game up to more people.

This is from the Previously tracked Turtles page:

"Since our satellite-tracking program started in 2003, we have tracked 21 adult turtles as they returned to their resident foraging grounds.

It is likely that these turtles were born on Bonaire many years ago, yet now live all around the Caribbean.

From our tracking program, we know that our adult turtles can live as far as 2200 kilometers away and as close as Los Roques, only 175 kilometers to the east."

I heard about this thanks to a tweet from ikiMap.

If Only I Taught Geography

... I'd really put my students to the test with this on-line geography game.

In the game How many countries can you name in 5 minutes? you are asked to type the correct spelling of as many countries as you can think of, all in five minutes. The clock start ticking as soon as you get to the page. It is not easy. Out of 195 possible countries, I got, well, I'm not telling. A key point to remember is to type in the country name and that enter each time. At end you can see how well you did, what percentage of countries are chosen, what are the 'hard' countries that you got and likewise, what are those 'easy' countries that you forgot about.

What you see above is what you get. No maps.

Thank you librarygrrl for the tweet.

More Geography Games

Games are a great way to learn things while you're recreating/relaxing and geography is no exception. Actually, geography games are an ideal way to learn about places and where they are in the world. I've written about some geographical games before (look here, and here, and here, and here). The game above is from Addicting Games, is called the 50 States Game, and was told to me by my 10 year old son.

Another game that I just heard of is called Find Country: Improve Your Geographic Knowledge. See above, I knew where Egypt was. Thanks, TIPLine blog.

Google Earth Games

I like to post about geographical games when I hear about them. I heard about some more by way of TipLine. TipLine heard about the Google Earth games in Frank Taylor's Google Earth Blog. Milk Truck Madness is a favorite at home. The games with the Google Earth plugins sound great.

Geography Game

I like geography games. There are a few out there that are a lot of fun and a great way to waste time, I mean, check your geographic knowledge and that of your children. Here's another...Chris Spagnuolo's GeoScrum.

This came my way thanks to Kenneth Kay posting a comment on this blog and then, in turn, me checking out his remote sensing/GIS blog. He posted about the GeoScrum game.

Geography Game Using Google Earth

This is fun. And a productive time-waster. Where On Google Earth is a game using Google Earth. Those that run the site pick a spot on the globe and you are supposed to guess where it is.

From the game web site:

To participate, just make your guess in the comments section for each photo. Guesses will be held until the end of the contest, when they will all be made public. Anything and everything is fair game for getting a correct answer. Each contest will last 2-3 days, so submit your guess as soon as you have an idea.

U.S. Politics and Campaiging: The Game

My nine year old showed this game to me. (Actually, he was playing it and I looked over his shoulder and was pleased to see that my interest in maps and in politics has rubbed off on him.) It's on the on-line game site MiniClip and it's called Campaign.

The game is about the current U.S. presidential campaign; you choose players who are currently campaigning for President. Then you choose your staff--Spinmeister, Operative, Hatchet Man, or Fundraiser. When you play, you need to choose your moves wisely because each one (attack ads, rally, new hire) costs you money.

Fun Mapping Game for Kids of All Ages - Statetris

Like Tetris only with states dropping down (from Canada?), Statris USA is a lot of fun for teaching/learning where the US states are. Thank you, Diana Sinton for the tip. Other countries/continents available:

Africa

Europe

France

Netherlands

UK

Found at Mapperz: The Mapping News Blog

The ReDistricting Game

"As a mapmaker, I can have more of an impact on an election than on a campaign. The system is out of whack."

Here is a really cool redistricting game that "is designed to educate, engage, and empower citizens around the issue of political redistricting. Currently, the political system in most states allows the state legislators themselves to draw the lines. This system is subject to a wide range of abuses and manipulations that encourage incumbents to draw districts which protect their seats rather than risk an open contest."

Mentioned on NPR's Morning Edition June 14, and passed along in a post by NITLE's Jamie Carroll, this seems like a terrific way to teach about how the lines are drawn.

This is what the game looks like...