What: If you were a student in the 1980s or 90s you might recognize Carmen Sandiego as one of the earliest educational video games – the kind that came on discs! The original game version and the following TV show were all about geography. Today’s Carmen Sandiego is still geography-based, although there are fewer clues than the original versions.
Audience: Adults will enjoy the nostalgia of playing Carmen Sandiego, but the geographic clues are quite simple. The clues are suitable for primary and elementary students although students will need to be able to read to play on their own. (It would be great to see some audio accessibility tools built into this game!)
Time to Play: There are three games in total. An adult could whiz through each game in less than 5 minutes.
When using this with a full class of students, I would be sure to go more slowly and talk about geographic concepts to build geographic thinking. For example, you can take Peg Man and drop him onto the street level and explore.
Equipment: Google Earth works well in a web browser like Google Chrome and the Google Earth app also makes for a great mobile experience. The app version of Carmen Sandiego is nearly identical to the browser version.
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