This is a fun and kinesthetic middle-school appropriate social studies/geography game taking advantage of the current Pokemon GO! craze to gain an understanding of finding absolute location. It is essentially crossing Bingo, Pokemon GO!, and Roulette. (*Note - Students do NOT use personal electronics in this activity and does NOT utlize the actual Pokemon GO! app!!)
Students choose a coordinate from a list and travel to the location in the classroom. The Powerpoint slides then award Pokemon to student pairs round by round if they happen to be on one of the coordinates that come up. An image of a Pokemon flashes on the screen with a corresponding point value (Ex: 180W longitude only - you caught...Pikachu!, 0 degrees latitude only, you caught...etc) They keep track of their catches on their inventory tracker.
(**Update - I realized there needed to be something to signal the start and end of each round of movement, so I added 12 slides that include a GO graphic and 30 seconds of music that fades at the end. You can adjust the timing of the clip to suit your students needs or your time constraints.)
Set up:
1. Put up pieces of paper or index cards evenly spaced on two adjacent walls in the room to mark degrees NS and WE.
- Latitude: 0 (middle of wall), 30N, 60N, 90N (in the corner) 30S, 60S, 90S (other corner)
- Longitude: 0 (middle of adjacent wall), 30W, 60W, 90W, 120W, 150W, 180W (in the corner), 30E, 60E, 90E, 120E, 150E, 180E (other corner)
Before the game:
1. Be sure to introduce the topic of latitude and longitude on a map prior to the activity, preferably the day before, and make sure students have a general understanding that coordinates enable us to find absolute location.
2. Break students into pairs, and hand them the inventory tracker and the coordinate grid. each member of the pair will be responsible for one of them. This makes sure all students are engaged.
3. Follow the instructions on the .PPT and away we go! Give students a minute or so to choose a coordinate and find the location in the classroom during each round. they "catch" Pokemon and keep track of their points on the tracker. This can be fun because students may find themselves sitting on desks or awkwardly clinging to other furniture. Bonus entertainment!
