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Ideas for Mystery City Projects in Middle School

Mystery city projects are an excellent way to teach geography and culture in middle school social studies classes. There are a variety of ways educators can present information about U.S. capital cities, local towns, and worldwide locations based on available technology, student competition, and required research. Teachers can use a single approach or try several methods to build student knowledge of the communities and world around them.
  1. Clue Sheets

    • Teachers can choose 10 cities and generate a list of clues for each. Distribute one clue per city on a worksheet or overhead display. Students should try to guess each city. Assuming no one correctly guesses all locations, the teacher should provide a second round of clues and students should continue submitting guesses after each subsequent set of clues is provided. The first student to correctly identify all 10 cities wins a prize.

    Telecommuting Summit

    • Schools on the cutting edge of educational technology can meet via satellite and try to identify the cities represented by the other technologically forward schools. Each campus should prepare a presentation about their hometown and choose two representatives to present the information in a conference broadcast. Students should provide important facts about the city's history, population, topography, climate, and famous people or events from the area...without giving away its name. The other school's students must figure out the location of the school before moving on to another presentation.

    Know the Capitals

    • Teachers can help students learn about cities and states simultaneously by giving them an assignment to identify the capitals of all 50 states and providing obscure clues about the states in which they're located. Students will need to complete research online or in the library about the states to determine which ones match each set of clues and then learn the state's capital to complete the assignment.

    History Mystery

    • Educate students about American history and geography at the same time by giving students a jigsaw map of the early colonies. Provide a list of events that occurred during the American revolution and stickers. Students should assemble the map, determine the location of each event and label the map with the stickers. For an additional assignment, inform the students they must provide a list of 10 additional events and label them on the map as well.

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