I first played Quizlet Live in a Spanish 4 class, last year. It takes your traditional Quizlet cards and creates a team-oriented, racing game. Depending on the amount of flashcards in a set, the first team to 8 or 12 pts. (larger sets) win. The teams are pre-determined for the free version.

At first, I wasn’t a fan. The games are too fast to check the projected team score board, there isn’t the option to have more than a 12 score, and when your team loses a point, you go back to zero instead of just subtracting one. I wish they offered this as a game option.

Sooooo, with those things in mind, I tried it for the first time in my Human Geography class in our Agriculture unit, but with a few changes. I wanted to slow the game down to a crawl, make them work with maps, and collaborate intensely. I think I succeeded with this one. It took about 10-13 minutes per game, and the win was earned.

First, I set up a Quizlet set like this (feel free to copy it for yourself):

• The right hand clue shows, “The type of predominant rural land use for the Great Plains,”
• The left hand clue shows, “Commercial Grain Agriculture.”

Next, I handed out color, paper copies of the Koppen and Land Use Maps (online, Rubenstein). One per student.

• Single page layout: Koppen and Agr Land Use Map
• 2-page layout: Koppen and Agr Land Use Map 2 Page Layout

Tell the kids to navigate to Quizlet Live while you hit the “Live” option from your pre-created Quizlet set. Once the kids enter the game code, they find their teams. Then the teacher hits the start button. The first clue is given and the team MUST collaborate to find the solution (hidden on any one of the team-members screens-thus forcing them to discuss). Since I stressed to them that accuracy is more important than speed, if they needed to look up a region or country, take the time to do it.

This activity helped them get reacquainted with the map, find correlations between climate and agricultural land use, and also decode Koppen’s climate classifications.

I think I will keep this one in my tool-belt for other units. The kids were engaged, and I liked the slowed pace of the game, forcing them to be careful with their choices.

AP Human Geography Course Standards:

1. Explain the connection between physical geography and agricultural practices
   1. Agricultural regions are influenced by the natural environment (e.g., climate, soils, landforms)

1. Major agricultural regions reflect physical geography and economic forces
   1. Identify agricultural production regions associated with major bioclimatic zones
      1. Plant and animal production is dependent on climatic conditions, including spatial variations in temperature and rainfall
      2. Some agricultural regions are associated with particular bioclimatic zones (e.g., Mediterranean, shifting agriculture, pastoral nomadism)