Show World is an interactive mapping website that takes demographic and economic data sets and creates a map based on the data. I’ve seen this done with Google Earth and Google Maps before, but Show World is slightly different. Each time you select a different data set, the size of each country increases or decreases in comparison to other countries. For example, if you select the data set about steel production, the size of China is huge relative to African countries. On the other hand, if you select the data set for students not in school, the African countries swell while China decreases in size.

World Mapper is a similar website that I reviewed about six weeks ago.

Applications for Education
Show World is a great way for students to visually interpret data sets. Having students explore the data sets and watch the size of the countries change could be a good discussion starting activity. Exploring the data sets on Show World could also be the starting point for research about the economic and social conditions of countries around the world.