Fun! Low Key! Community Building! World Geography & Culture Night!

Inside the EarthView Globe

Each year, we organize a World Geography and Culture Night at my school. The idea was born out of the need to broaden our students horizons and expose them to different aspects of the world that they may not be aware of.

Although our evening has taken place in the winter or spring, planning starts over the summer and gets into full swing come September. Over the summer we determine the date of our event by booking the unique EarthView Globe. This 20 foot in diameter inflatable globe is a highlighted feature of the evening. Families have the opportunity to go inside the globe and hear from Bridgewater State University’s geographic experts. 

Other than making sure space is available for the evening, the next step is to reach out to staff members for support. We ask the staff to if they have ideas for a geography or culture related activity they would like to facilitate. We also offer the opportunity to facilitate simple activities that we already have prepared. This year, we had far more staff involvement than in the past. Their presence gave a far different feel to Geo Night. The night evolved into a schoolwide event, rather than a a social studies department event.

In addition to the EarthView Globe, we have several other consistent activities.

As a concluding activity to the evening, we have always had a special event. We have invited in performers which highlight culture in a manner that our students have never seen before: Taiko drumming, traditional dancing, etc. More recently, we have concluded with a Mystery Skype. We have Skyped with places such as Singapore and China. The time difference plays into our favor during an evening event, and the crowd is always enthusiastic as they try to figure out the location.

Our reading specialist and assistant principal (the Crazy Reading Ladies) have also developed an activity each year. They tie it into the book that is the current school-wide read (#AllIn19). This year, students created six word stories based on pictures of shoes. The activity was connected to Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys which had a character philosophize that you can tell a person’s story by the shoes that they wear. Families perused a variety of shoes from different cultures and economic classes to devise their six word stories.

The school's Spanish teachers also offer an activity each year. For our most recent evening, they engaged students by crafting fiesta themed flowers. The room was abuzz with activity proving the flowers were a huge hit. In the past, they have engaged students with Spanish dancing and Day of the Dead activities.

Other standbys include landform bingo and geo bee questions. A newer addition has been a BreakOut room that is connected to some other place in the world. This year we had multiple breakout boxes running at the same time within a room. We gathered several traditional games for families to learn and play in another room. Students also enjoyed a green screen where they can choose from a selection of places throughout the world that they can “visit.” The picture of them at the location is then emailed to the students or families.

Our town’s youth librarian has gotten involved the last two years as well. She offers a “book tasting,” displaying a wide variety of books that highlight culture and geography. Families with library cards can even check out books of interest.

This year we also enjoyed the efforts of two of our eighth grade students. They organized a thorough exposure to India including food, dancing, dressing in authentic clothing, and making and painting diyas. Teachers were blown away by all they prepared and students were excited to get a taste of Indian culture.

The evening is structured so that families can attend the activities over an hour and a half. Originally, we had the activities run for about 25 minutes so that students could rotate through. The nature of middle school students took over, however, and the evening has become much more fluid. Most activities seem to work best with highly engaging activities that allow the students and families can come and go as they please.

The evening is fun and low key but full of energy. There are plenty of smiles that go around. Everyone walks away learning something new while enjoying themselves. Organizing a World Geography and Culture Night of your own would create a vibrant event that enhances your school’s culture.


If you have an evening like World Geography and Culture Night that happens at your school or, if this post has generated some thoughts or questions of your own, please share in the comments. I would appreciate hearing about them.

Photos From Our Event

Spanish Flowers

BreakOut Room

Six Word Stories

Mystery Skype

Book Tasting

Student Led Indian Dancing

Celebrating Pi Day with Geography

On March 14th of every year, our school, like many, celebrate Pi Day.

Signs were posted around the school to celebrate pi (and Albert Einstein’s birthday - we even had a look-alike contest). Teachers throughout the school did different activities that involved circles, diameters, radii, and pi. The event is a nice way to build community throughout the building.

In the 7th grade geography class, students worked with continent’s population.  After quickly drawing circles to represent their perceptions of each continent’s comparative population, students found the actual populations.  They then worked with diameter, radius, and area to draw appropriate circles to represent population.  

When arranged in their appropriate spots in relationship to one another on the globe, the students had a simple cartogram.

Displaying the population data in this visual manner made a great learning opportunity for the students.  They remarked how Asia’s great size compared to the other continents was striking - they knew it would be the largest, but not by that much.  They were also surprised that Australia was so small and that Africa was as large as it was.

A simple activity to help celebrate Pi Day, and math, allowed students the opportunity to gain new-found understandings to better understand the world.

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If your students took part in some engaging Pi Day activities, or if this post has generated some thoughts of your own, please share in the comments. I would appreciate hearing about them.

Colleagues Inspire Through Community, Camaraderie

A week before our annual World Geography and Culture Night was to happen, I was nervous.  Major details had not been worked out, I felt we may have too few participants, and I was fearful we may have a failure on our hands.  

Inside the EarthView globe.

Our night has three components:  a potluck dinner for which families sign-up and bring a cultural dish or dessert to share, activities for families to have some relaxed fun while being exposed to geography and culture, and a performance.  The potluck and performance (the dynamic Genki Spark) were set, but we were without activities for our families - needing new ones to keep the event fresh.

We were stuck, trying to figure out what to do and how to convince others to run some activities that were not even planned yet.

But then, at our last meeting prior to the event, we had our own little miracle.  Several teachers, who had not been involved in the past events, stepped forward to take an active role.  And they responded in heroic fashion.

Playing Loteria

The Spanish teachers, who were struggling to organize a dance activity for the evening, scrapped that plan and went with a simpler alternative: Loteria.  Their room was a big hit, as they energetically engaged families in Spanish, opening their eyes to a slice of Mexico.

Our resident Crazy Reading Ladies, an English teacher and reading specialist, had an epiphany for an activity connected to this year’s AllIn!™ book Unbroken.  In the novel, Louis Zamperini’s mother makes gnocchi, so these teachers had families up to their elbows in mashed potatoes, giving them another access point to the novel while exposing them to a bit of Italian culture.

Making Mama Zamperini's gnocchi.

The school’s art teacher jumped in, too.  She organized a paper quilt making activity.  Families could express their creative side while designing a square showing what culture means to them.  Her enthusiasm helped to capture imaginations.

Our fourth World Geography and Culture Night was our best ever.

We have always envisioned the evening as a school wide event, and our colleagues helped us move toward that goal.  Everywhere I turned people were enjoying themselves; students and their families were excited while happily gaining exposure to culture and geography.  The potluck is always a big hit, as are the performance and the unique EarthView globe.  But the spirit and creativity of our colleagues pushed the evening over the top.  They were not only hosting engaging activities, but they sold them to the families with great vigor.

My colleagues impressed me, made me more appreciative of their talents, made me feel fortunate to be part of such a vibrant team and community, and made me believe that, with their continued contributions, next year’s event will be our best yet.

 If you gain inspiration from your colleagues or host great events that you help organize at your school, please leave a comment. I would love to hear about them.

The Genki Spark taiko drumming.