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US States Completion Map

Run the US States Completion Map MicroSim Fullscreen

About This MicroSim

This map brings together all 50 states from every chapter. Each state starts out white. When a student clicks a state, it fills with the color of its region and the panel below the map shows four things:

  • the name of the state and its two-letter abbreviation
  • its capital city, marked with a red star on the map
  • its region: Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, Southwest, or West
  • one key fact about the state

A progress bar counts how many of the 50 states have been explored, so the map slowly "completes" as students work. The eleven states introduced in the Regions and Boundaries chapter carry a gold "Featured in this chapter" tag.

Quiz Me! asks ten questions. Half give a state name ("Click on Wyoming") and half give a capital ("Click on the state whose capital is Pierre"). Students answer by clicking the state on the map.

How to Use

  1. Hover over a state to see its name.
  2. Click a state to color it in and read about it.
  3. Watch the States explored bar. Can you reach 50 of 50?
  4. Use the Zoom to buttons to reach the small Northeast states, Alaska, and Hawaii. Lower 48 returns to the starting view.
  5. Click Quiz Me! to start a ten-question quiz. State names do not appear when you hover during the quiz.
  6. After each answer the correct state and its capital are shown. A wrong click turns red and the right answer turns gold.
  7. Click Explore to go back to exploring. Your progress is kept.
  8. Reset clears your progress and starts over.

Iframe Embed Code

You can add this MicroSim to any web page by adding this to your HTML:

<iframe src="https://dmccreary.github.io/us-geography/sims/remaining-states/main.html"
        height="642px"
        width="100%"
        scrolling="no"></iframe>

Lesson Plan

Grade Level

Grades 3-6

Duration

15-20 minutes

Learning Objective

Students will identify all 50 states and locate their capitals on a United States map (Bloom's level: Remember).

Prerequisites

  • Students have read about the states in the earlier chapters.
  • Students know that every state has one capital city.

Activities

  1. Exploration (7 min): Students click states until the progress bar reaches at least 25 of 50. Ask them to start with the states they already know and say the name before they click.
  2. Guided Practice (5 min): Call out a region. Students color in every state of that region and read each capital aloud. Use the Northeast, Alaska, and Hawaii buttons to reach every state.
  3. Assessment (5 min): Students take the ten-question quiz and record their score. They repeat the quiz and try to beat it.

Discussion Questions

  • Which region has the most states? Which has the fewest?
  • Which capitals surprised you? Is the capital always the largest city?
  • Which states were hardest to find, and what could help you remember them?

Assessment

  • Student finds a named state on the map without hovering for help.
  • Student matches a capital city to its state.
  • Student names the region of a state that is pointed to.

Data Notes

  • State shapes and capital locations come from Natural Earth public domain map data.
  • The five regions follow the grouping used in this textbook. Other books and the U.S. Census Bureau group some states differently.
  • Washington, DC is drawn on the map but is not a state, so it cannot be clicked.

References

  1. Natural Earth - Public domain map data used for the state shapes and capital locations.
  2. States and Capitals - USA.gov list of state governments.
  3. State Facts for Students - U.S. Census Bureau.
  4. Leaflet - The open-source JavaScript library used to draw the map.