Comparing Places with Google MyMaps

The other day a student in one of my classes blurted out, "What is the largest lake in the world?"

Being from Minnesota, and having gone there many times in my life, I told them it was Lake Superior.

"You know about the Five Great Lakes?", I asked. They blankly stared back at me. 

So I pulled up Google Maps and showed them the Great Lakes in the US. "When you are looking across them, they look like the ocean", I said to them.

"Are they as big as Lake Biwa?", one student asked me. (Lake Biwa is the largest lake in Japan.)

This is where I got the idea to actually compare the lakes.

Compare areas or things on a map in Google MyMaps

Using Google MyMaps, you can add a shape or line to your map by clicking the connection tool. 

When drawing a shape, click often in small increments, trying to make the basic outline. 

To draw in a more detailed manner, zoom into the map. If you find that you run out of space when drawing, move your cursor to the edge of the map to move it around.

When you have a shape, you can click it and drag it to what you want to compare it to. Below is Lake Biwa, which is ready to move to North America.

This tool does take some practice, so don't become discouraged when using it. When I moved my object, I couldn't drag it off the screen and get the map to move at the same time so I had to drag the object, then move the map, drag the object, then move the map, and continue until I reached Lake Superior. 

Using a map to actually compare the sizes of two objects will allow the students to actually see the difference. While Lake Biwako is a pretty big lake, when compared to Lake Superior, it's as big as Isle Royale (to the upper left of the red, Lake Biwako cutout).