A Different Way of Looking at the World

While looking for some 4th quarter Social Studies resources to share with the teachers I noticed some interesting sites that were shown at the NCTIES conference earlier this month. The show.mappingworlds site in particular caught my attention. It has a new and different way of looking at data for our states and the world. All the collected data allowed numerous possibilities for projects in more subject areas than just Social Studies.

It is easy to get started – choose from USA, World or Japan, then select a subject and topic. The states or countries or prefectures change shape according to the data collected. Being able to watch the states change size and shape helps to make the information more meaningful. Who would have thought that the top two states, Iowa and Illinois, produce the most corn and would have the shape of a man’s face?

What a great way to help students remember facts. Included with the visual changing of the states are sections for maps, rankings, books, and interesting facts. The animated maps can be embedded or downloaded as an image. The data can be downloaded as an Excel file to use for graphs and charts.

This is a site with endless possibilities for making collected data come alive visually. Where would your fact-finding adventure take you?