PIGSKIN GEOGRAPHY® Teachers’ Instructions

How it works–
Students work individually or in teams to complete weekly quizzes based on the travels of NFL teams. No knowledge of football is required. However, students need to know how to read a map and use reference books and internet search engines.

Quizzes are always worked the week prior to when the games are played. For example, Week #1 quiz is based on the schedule for games played on Sunday, September 13th. The quiz should be worked during the week of Sept 7-11th. Have students find the NFL schedule under Scoreboard in the Sports section of Monday’s Free Lance–Star.

Quizzes are developed sequentially over the season. They start out by teaching the location of the NFL cities in the United States, and get more difficult as the weeks roll by. If you start late, begin with a practice session answering selected questions from preceding weeks before jumping in with the current week.

What you need–

• A large wall map of the United States. Do not use a map in an atlas that has a page break in the middle of it.
• Access to print and online reference materials such as encyclopedia, World Almanac and Internet search engines.
• Each student or team should have a Reference Folder with the following available for their reference at all times:
  o Student Study Hint Sheet – A must. Half the answers can be found using this information. (It lists capital cities; river cities; ocean cities; bay cities; peninsula states; great lake cities and panhandle states where games are played.)
  o Two-letter state abbreviations with nicknames (used to identify states a team will fly across en route to a game)
  o Time Zone Map
  o Population Information
  o Seating Capacity of stadia in the NFL for 2009
• The weekly quiz. Print a copy for each student or team of students
• Teachers’ answer key. In addition to the answers, you’ll find background information and other interesting tidbits of information
• NFL Schedule for games played on the upcoming Sunday. Look for this under Scoreboard in the Sports section of Monday’s Free Lance–Star.

Students’ Reference Folder
Quizzes and Answer Keys
Supplemental Activities