Show World is an interactive mapping website that takes demographic, economic, environmental, and political data sets and creates maps based on those data. This can be 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.

The maps generated by Show World can be downloaded. You can also embed the animated maps into your blog. To get the embed code you do have to submit your email address.

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.