Where in the World? Our First Mystery Skype

Today Mr. Wegner's class practiced their map location and deduction skills by participating in a "Mystery Skype."  The task: we needed to figure out where in the world this other class was located by playing a game of 20 questions.

We started with some very broad questions such as "Are you in the United States?" and "Are you one of the original 13 colonies?"  Our questions continued to narrow throughout the Skype based on the mystery school's answers.  Our student "interviewers" were responsible for asking the questions and answering the questions asked by students in the other school (who were also trying to guess our location).

Once a question was answered, our "scribes" carefully kept track of the information that we knew.

Finally, our "Google mappers" used the iPads to zoom in on the location and develop new questions for our interviewers to ask.

What did we conclude?  Our Mystery Skype was with another fifth grade class from Hays, Kansas!  After guessing the correct location, students had some time to ask one another questions about their respective cities, including population, climate, size of its schools, and football teams.

This experience was a great opportunity for our students to practice their geography skills as well as meet some new kids from another part of the country.