North America's Biggest Things

Pinto MacBean

Last week in Alberta I learned that Canadian towns have a fascination with having the World's biggest things (Canadian friends, please correct me if that's an Alberta-only fascination). In Bow Island, Alberta they have the World's biggest Pinto bean. In Medicine Hat, Alberta they have the World's biggest tee-pee. In my last workshop of the week there someone told me about Big Things of a Big Country. The site is a catalog of the towns in Canada that can lay claim to some of the World's biggest things. A U.S.-based counterpart to Big Things of a Big Country is What's Large Where. Did you know that Maine has the World's largest boot and the World's largest globe?

Applications for Education
I've been thinking about the World's largest things for a week now. What I've come up with is creating a Google Maps or Google Earth scavenger hunt for the World's biggest objects. You could create one and have students complete the hunt by gathering the locations and information about the locations. Or you could have students create a series of scavenger hunts that they swap with each other.