Last week I published a video about how to record a Google Earth tour in your web browser. That’s just one of many tools that students can use to create multimedia maps. A few other options include using Scribble Maps, Padlet maps, and Google’s My Maps tool.

Creating a map with one of these tools can help students develop a better contextual understanding of where places are in the world. Rather than just hearing Friday Night Lights was loosely based on Odessa, Texas they can actually see where in the world Odessa, Texas is in relation to other places they may know or have heard of. Continuing from that example, here are ten fun things for students to map.

• Settings of television shows.
• Movie locations.
• The locations of favorite sports teams and their rivals.
• Settings of favorite books.
• Birthplaces of celebrities.
• Origins of dog breeds.
• Locations of city names in songs.
• Locations in geography jokes (check here and here for some fun, clean geography jokes).
• All the places visited in one season of The Amazing Race.
• List of dream vacation destinations.

For more ideas about using Google Earth in your classroom, take a look at my Around the World With Google Earth activity or enroll in A Crash Course in Google Earth & Maps for Social Studies.