Free Map Tools
- Online, interactive world atlas.
- National Geographic Black Line Maps.
- National Geographic MapMaker tool.
- Use The True Size website to drag and drop countries in order to visualize how big or small they really are. Try it with Antarctica!
- Video: Why All World Maps are Wrong.
- Video: The Real Size of Countries on YouTube examines the different kinds of maps and why flat maps must distort the size of objects.
- The double-sided disk map aims to solve the country distortion problems.
- You can print the double-sided disk map here!
General Geography
- Videos: The entire Geography Crash Course on Youtube.
- My kids LOVED the Kathy Troxel Geography Songs. You never forget what you learn to sing!
- A fun map of Pangaea with modern political borders.
- Video: Stop motion animated pop-up book about Pangaea.
- Video: About plate tectonics.
- Video: Short illustration of what the earth might look like in another 250 million years.
- Interactive site to try to grasp the scale of the universe.
- Appreciate the scale of a single electron compared to a mosquito or a school bus with a planet using Nikon’s interactive Universcale tool.
- More fun with scale: If the moon was one pixel.
- Journey to the center of the earth with the BBC’s interactive website.
- Watch the seasons change via satellite in a matter of seconds.
- Video: Ten Reasons we Know the Earth is Round.
- Watch the wind patterns all over the globe!
- Video: Where is the hottest place on earth?
- Video: Where is the coldest place on earth?
- Video: Earth’s 4.5 billion year history visualized on a football field.
- Video: Everything you need to know about Earth in seven and a half minutes.
- Cool interactive site allowing you to see what the Earth looked like millions of years ago.
- Video: Diving between the continents. (Warning, jump ahead to 1:00 mark for children living with a single, divorced, separated, or widowed parent. Families are families regardless of marriage status.)
- Video: What would a journey to the Mariana trench be like?
- Video: No one can really decide which mountain is the tallest.
- Video: Why earthquakes occur and why they are so difficult to predict.
- Video: How tsunamis work.
- Tour the world’s active volcanoes with the Mountains of Fire project.
- Video: What’s the difference between a hurricane, tornado, or cyclone?
- The many types and subtypes of geography.
Human Geography
Human geography is the study of the interrelationships between people, place, and environment, and how these vary spatially and temporally across and between locations.
- Video: What is Human Geography? by Crash Course.
- Find beautiful photos and explore countries and oceans all over the world with the World Factbook.
- Explore global populations with the Population Pyramid project.
- View the endangered languages map and listen to samples.
- View and compare data about multiple cities with the Urban Observatory project.
- National Geographic’s human geography resources.
Physical Geography
Physical geography is the study of the processes that shape the Earth’s surface, the animals and plants that inhabit it, and the spatial patterns they exhibit.
- Video: What is Physical Geography? by Crash Course.
- Explore GeoScience channel on Youtube.
- Visit EarthLabs for easily digestible lessons on everything from hurricanes to the carbon cycle.
- The Encyclopedia of the Earth is a wiki-site, but articles and photos are reviewed by scholars and experts.
- National Geographic’s physical geography resources.
- Video: The Weight of Mountains.
Environmental Geography
Environmental Geography studies how humans affect the natural environment we live in.
- Tracking climate change with NASA.
- The Ocean Clean Up project – a system invented by a teenager is making an incredible positive impact.
- National Geographic’s resources on how humans affect the environment.
- Video: Human Impact by FuseSchool.
- Video: Five Human Impacts on the Environment by Crash Course.
- Climate basics for kids, including an easy explanation for the greenhouse effect.
