Geoguessr

Addicting gameplay jazzes up geography

Learning rating

Community rating

Based on 19 reviews

Privacy rating

Expert evaluation by Common Sense

Grades

4–12

Subjects & Skills

Critical Thinking, Social Studies

Great for

Game-Based Learning, Instructional Design

Price: Free, Paid
Platforms: Web, Android, iPad, iPhone

Pros: The activities will engage students' curiosity, spur discussions, and enhance research skills.

Cons: Users may be able to access mature content via Twitch livestreams; gameplay is limited without a Pro account; lacks supporting content or materials.

Bottom Line: Game-based platform can get kids interested in world geography and expose them to different cultures on a surface level.

Teachers can use Geoguessr as an extension activity in geography or world cultures classrooms or as a media literacy and critical thinking exercise in any content area. It can serve as a prompt for teaching and learning research skills, as a discussion starter about differences in geographical and building features in different places, or as inspiration for student-designed games using free online resources like photo collections. With dedicated play and more in-depth small-group or whole-class discussion, teachers can use Geoguessr to build students' background knowledge about geography and explore places that are new to students and even to teachers. 

Put kids in groups and give them roles such as researcher, recorder, or fun-fact finder to add more flavor to the locations they identify, and encourage them to present their findings to their peers. Students can also connect with students in their schools or around the world to share challenges and build relationships. 

Free accounts allow users to play for five minutes every 15 minutes, which could work as a warm-up or an end-of-class activity. If your school has a Pro account, encourage students to make their own map challenges. Have them create maps that have personal meaning or are based around a theme that you're studying in class. If there's no room in the budget for a subscription, your classroom can still play a different map daily, along with the Daily Challenge, and play the free world option. Teachers and students can also create their own quizzes and join the quiz with a QR code.

Geoguessr is an addictive puzzler on the web or as an Android or iOS app that tasks students with guessing the location of Google Street View and Mapillary images from around the world. By investigating the image area, scouring it for clues, and thinking critically about what they see, students work to narrow down where in the world it might be. Using clues such as road signs, languages, environment, topography, and personal experience, kids also employ their research skills to identify the precise location.

To guess, students drop a pin on the map next to the picture and zoom in to place it more precisely if necessary. At the end of each round, the game shows players how close their guesses are to the actual location and awards points based on proximity. After five rounds, a summary is shown with the total number of points. Players can share games with their friends, challenging them to match their high scores.

The site includes maps created by Geoguessr users, and a Daily Challenge. Students with free accounts can do the Daily Challenge and one map per day, along with the original free world map as often as they'd like. Students with Pro accounts can also make and save their own maps, play as many maps as they like, compete with friends, create leagues, and have no ads between rounds. For all accounts, player profiles keep track of stats like best round, average score, number of games played, and recent activity. Students also earn badges for achieving various milestones. One note of caution: Users can livestream their games, some of which contain mature content warnings, via Twitch, so teachers will want to ensure that their school's content filters are in effect.

Geoguessr helps to solve what might be a challenge for social studies teachers: lack of interest in an understanding of world geography. By bringing places around the world into your classroom, students may be naturally curious and motivated to find out more. Kids can even use map reading skills and the process of elimination to narrow down their choices. While solving a puzzle or trying to beat a friend's high score, students have opportunities to learn a bit about the world, its regional differences, ecosystems, and inhabitants, in both urban and rural settings. 

Once students have guessed the location, there's minimal information about each place, creating somewhat of a surface-level experience. While students can use their critical thinking skills to make observations about landmarks, languages, architecture, and geographical features to figure out the location, there are few opportunities to learn more about a place aside from its location on a map.

Geoguessr is less straight instruction and more a platform for cultivating 21st century skills. It can be a good motivator for thinking about geography and culture, and for building reasoning and critical thinking skills in self-directed, small-group, or whole-class settings. While they'll certainly develop some strategies of their own, students will benefit from some guidance and help to encourage thoughtful play and collaboration. By creating their own maps, students can bring their geographic study down to the local level, anywhere in the world.

Learning Rating

Overall Rating
Engagement

Using Google Maps street view, Geoguessr can compel kids to explore the world in an exciting competitive game.

Pedagogy

Students can investigate images to learn more about places around the world, but the game stops short of providing cultural context.

Support

The game is straightforward and has a quick tutorial. Some students may struggle with the limits on timed tasks and prefer to play on a mobile device versus a computer or laptop.

Common Sense reviewer
Marianne Rogowski
Marianne Rogowski Instructional Technology Facilitator

Community Rating

Game is fun, relies too much on prior knowledge rather than learning

My overall opinion is that while fun, there are rare instances when the website provides real educational value. This is something that people play outside of school for fun, not really about learning. But if used properly and at the right time, it can connect to a geography unit for people of all ages. Also might be good for a cultural unit as students can see up close different parts of the world and maybe lose some biases about certain countries.

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Privacy Rating

Data Safety How safe is this product?

  • Unclear whether this product supports interactions between trusted users.
  • Unclear whether personal information can be displayed publicly.
  • Unclear whether user-created content is filtered for personal information before being made publicly visible.

Data Rights What rights do I have to the data?

  • Unclear whether users can create or upload content.
  • Processes to access or review user data are available.
  • Unclear whether this product provides processes to modify data for authorized users.

Ads & Tracking Are there advertisements or tracking?

  • Personal information is not shared for third-party marketing.
  • Traditional or contextual advertisements are displayed.
  • Unclear whether this product displays personalised advertising.

Continue reading about this tool's privacy practices, including data collection, sharing, and security.

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