Instructify

From its beginning, social studies has been a mashup discipline, the marriage of fuzzy social sciences with more tangible fields like physical geography, to say nothing of history and civics. At times, it can be hard for teachers to make these disparate components seem like functioning parts of the same whole, as opposed to some awkwardly cobbled-together Frankenstein of facts.

Enter Worldmapper, a site that aggregates data from just about every country in the world and displays it visually on a flattened global map. Well, not really a map. A cartogram, which “re-sizes each territory according to the variable being mapped.” For example, a cartogram of GDP wealth shows a gigantic U.S., Europe, and Japan, a sizable China and India, and a tiny just about everywhere else.

Worldmapper has 366 maps so far, with more on the way. The maps are sorted into categories (food, housing, health, death, etc.) for easy browsing and are ready to use in the classroom: Text in the sidebar of each page explains the variable being shown, giving context and sometimes clarifying why a certain country stands out or doesn’t appear at all. Some pages also include relevant quotations or interesting facts. For example, I learned from the alcohol consumption map (What? I was thirsty curious.) that when a baby girl is born in South China, “her parents will brew alcohol for her, bury it underground and keep it until she marries.” (Fascinating!)

You may want to save that one for trivia night with friends. But add this site to your bag of tricks, and watch the world of social studies open before your students’ eyes. -EMILY JACK

Worldmapper

Related Stuff:

See who’s hating who at World Conflicts Today

PWN Your Social Network with GoCrossCampus

Relive the Carnage of American Conflict…With Food

Condense Centuries of Hostility into Ninety Seconds with Maps of War