Global/US Geography Jingle - Creative Song Production

This Digital Storytelling Unit is designed to be completed over the course of three to four weeks. Students, working in teams of three to four, will explore core curricular content and be required to make an engaging and creative short video about that content. This Digital Storytelling unit is part of a larger initiative called Meridian Stories (www.meridianstories.com).

Each Digital Storytelling Unit:
• Should take three to four weeks to complete;
• Is aligned to Common Core Curricular Standards;
• Contains an Evaluation Rubric that allows the teacher to clearly score and appraise the students’ work;
• Is designed to be integrated into the classroom; and
• Can be assigned as an extra credit project to teams of students that you think would benefit from this kind of alternative, deep learning experience.


For this digital storytelling unit, student teams are asked to create a jingle (think ‘Conjunction Junction’ and ‘Unpack Your Adjectives’) that communicates the following information to a group of their peers.

• The names, geographical identification and distinguishing characteristics about Middle Eastern countries (as defined by Iran to the East, Israel to the West, Turkey to the north and Yemen to the South); OR
• The names, geographical identification and distinguishing characteristics of the 15 former Soviet Republics; OR
• A selection (of their choice) of eight key countries that used to be a part of the British Empire, the years they became independent and one statement as to why; OR
• The names, geographical identification and distinguishing characteristics about the provinces of Canada; OR
• A geographical grouping of the students’ choice, with the teacher’s approval.

The goal is to create a musical educational tool to help people learn the names and places of these regions, but also to learn a few basic cultural ideas that define and distinguish these regions. Therefore, the song should be:
• between 2 and 3 minutes long; and
• developed with the idea that the jingle can be ‘memorizable’.

Meridian Stories' Geography Jingle by Meridian Stories is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.