Okay, so I took at look at this website http://sporcle.com/ from a recent Boston Globe article (how can you resist the descriptive title of ‘mentally stimulating diversions’?!), and gave the world geography quiz a try. Basically, there’s a blank mercator projection of the earth with all the countries outlined, a blank box at the top where you write the names of countries, and a fifteen minute timer. Your task is to name as many countries (spelled correctly, no less) in that time period. As soon as you finish typing the name of a country, for example as soon as you type in the last ‘a’ in ‘Kenya,’ that label will automatically be placed where Kenya is located on the map.
I’m kind of sad to say that on my first go around, I only named around 70 countries… I’ll work on it. It says something about our general familiarity with the places around the world, right? Whole pockets (for me, at least) of non-concept or consideration. My students from last year would be pretty horrified that I’d forgotten Trinidad and Tobago…
Note: There are also a lot of other little addictive games on this site, too, so be forewarned.
http://sporcle.com/games/world.php
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[...] How about this for some great reactions this morning– Spending time with I., who is the nine year old son of my cousin Y-K with whom I’ve been staying in Singapore over the past few days. We had been doing some geography games with this eraser set he got from a friend, and then moved to that one website sporcle.com which I mentioned a couple of weeks ago where they have this world geography quiz. (check it out) [...]