Where Does Your Thanksgiving Dinner Come From? is the title of an Esri Storymap. The storymap displays where eight popular Thanksgiving foods are grown and harvested in the United States. The storymap includes a map for each ingredient. Each map shows the locations of commercial producers. Fun facts are included in the storymap too. For example, did you know that Illinois has at least twice as many acres of pumpkins as any state?

Applications for Education

It is too late to use this storymap in this year’s Thanksgiving lesson plans, but bookmark it for next year. You could use the storymap to spark students’ curiosity to investigate questions like “why does Illinois grow so many pumpkins?” or “why don’t we harvest any pecans in New England?”

You can learn how to make maps similar to this one in my upcoming course, To Geography & Beyond With Google Earth & Maps.

H/T to Maps Mania for the Thanksgiving storymap.