Games that teach geography

There are numerous sites which offer online games for checking your knowledge in geography.

One of the most popular kinds of quizzes is recognizing the flags of the countries like Geography Genius. You can choose the level and read the clues about the country. Great source of information!

Another popular kind of geography games is finding a place on the map. I love Geosense which asks you to identify the world countries. You can play the game alone or against someone on the net.

Finally, there are games which ask you to point at a specific location on the map as close to the actual place as possible. I love the one on the TravelPod website. Really challenging!
There is a variety of games about each continent, UNESCO sites, capitals and flags of the world in The Traveler IQ Challenge® and they even let you embed the games on your own website.
 

City Creator

City Creator is a cool application for building 3 versions of cities.

You can choose between a medieval city, a city in winter (great for Christmas) and a modern high-rise city.

The construction work is simple - you just drag and drop pieces from the palettes and arrange them on the field in the way you want. You can change the background until you get the one you like.

If you want to save your city, you need to register on the site.

Example:

How can you use it in the classroom?
1. Ask your students to build the city of their liking and describe it while showing the city on the screen.
2. Decide with your students on building the same version of a city, e.g. medieval, then ask them to describe it on paper. Give a copy of all descriptions to every student. Show each city on the screen and ask the students to guess which description fits.
3. Make a city yourself and ask the students to describe it on paper. Then choose the best description.
4. Teach vocabulary using the city image (directions, location, types of buildings etc).
5. Finally, it is great fun!