Kahoot'ing on North American Physical Geography with ESO3

Last week, Mónica and Jalen prepared a Kahoot to help the the ESO3 practice and test their knowledge of North American physical geography. A Kahoot is a real-time, interactive platform that allows students to respond to questions on their phones and awards them based on whether they can select the right answer and how quickly. In the questions, the students are provided with a picture to contextualise the question and must select from four answers. An example from our Kahoot is below.

With the students, we tested their knowledge of North America's bodies of water (lakes, rivers, oceans, bays, etc.), islands (the Bahamas, Cuba, Baffin, etc.), and other physical features (mountain ranges, the Great Plains, etc.). Because we were still introducing the topic, we allowed the students to use a map to help answer the questions, but most questions were certainly not easy and the Kahoot challenged the students to think critically about what we had previously discussed.

Additionally, we added a "Literacy" element to the activity. In English, one must put "the" before many physical features. For example, one must add "the" before the Great Lakes, the Bahamas, or the Grand Canyon. Alternatively, some physical features like Bermuda or Hispaniola do not require "the" beforehand. For a native English speaker, accidentally adding or forgetting "the" incorrectly sounds not great, which is difficult for native Spanish speakers as there is not a similar concept in Spanish. The students did a great job at trying their best to add (or not add) "the" with the features.

Overall, the students greatly enjoyed playing the Kahoot. The winner was Héctor J. with Víctor and Paula taking 2nd and 3rd, respectively.