Hi! It’s Thursday, July 12, 2012 and time for Social Sciences at ClickSchooling!
Recommended Website:
FedStats: MapStats for Kids
Age Range: 9 and up (approximately, with parental supervision; emerging readers will need assistance)
This website is provided by FedStats (that supplies the U.S. government with statistical information), and provides engaging games to help kids learn basic mapping and statistics concepts based on national education standards.
When you get to the site you’ll see a welcome message and a menu of five games. Click on a game, and a screen with an image appears in the center of the page. Click on the image to open a new window with an explanation of the game and instructions for play. Select the difficulty level from easy to hard, and then start the game. Games include:
*Paint the Map - Select a data set ( e.g. household income or energy consumption) and paint the map of the USA to show if each state is above or below the national mean or median. Then, compare the data for each state.
*Farmland – Choose from three data sets: number of farms, average farm size, and acres in farms. Then use the controls to produce animations of the data as it changes through the years from 1910 to 2000. You’ll see some very revealing data that can generate much discussion.
*The Network Challenge – The idea is to chart the best path from a randomly generated state capital city to other capitals. The strategy and results vary depending on which of three games you select that include:
- Run for President – Using the data, chart a course to reach the maximum number of potential voters on a 7-city tour.
- Road Trip – Chart a roadmap for a vacation in the sun, or mountain climbing. Maximize distance while visiting cities with the highest percentage of sunshine, or get to the highest elevations in the shortest distance traveled.
- Rock Music Tour – Use the data to plan a tour that reaches the largest population of fans in the shortest distance.
*Market Manager – Create sales regions for your ice cream company by using data sets to guide you.
*Data To Graphics – Learn how to combine tables, bar charts and maps for data interpretation.
Again, you can set the difficulty level of each game from easy to hard making it suitable for a wide age range or ability level. All of the games can lead to great discussions about interpretation of the data. This is a terrific resource for adults and children to use together.
