South America Map Scavenger Hunt Bundle

About this resource

What's inside this resource

The South America Map Scavenger Hunt Bundle is a versatile social studies resource that allows students to reinforce geography skills while learning about countries across South America. Students are challenged to locate major South American countries on detailed maps, then answer questions that encourage critical thinking. Countries featured include Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Ecuador, Falkland Islands, French Guiana, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay, and Venezuela. With over 50 pages of engaging map activities, this bundle enables educators to facilitate whole class instruction, small group work, or independent practice according to their students' needs and ability levels. The South America Map Scavenger Hunt Bundle is an interactive way to build middle school students' spatial awareness and knowledge of South American geography.

In the classroom

Teaching tips & learning objectives

Learning objectives

Use cardinal and intermediate directions (north, southwest, northeast, etc.) to locate a place relative to a reference point on a map
Identify the capital city of each South America country from its outline map
Name the countries, oceans, and major physical features (rivers, mountain ranges) that border a given South American country
Mark specific map features accurately using a stated method (underline, circle, trace, or draw a symbol)

Teaching tips

Work through one country as a whole-class model before assigning the rest independently, since every country's question set follows the same direction-based format
Have students self-check with the matching answer key page immediately after finishing each country, since the key is provided per country rather than as one combined key at the end
Assign countries in small groups for a scavenger-hunt station rotation, since each country's map and questions form a self-contained set
Review intermediate directions (southwest, northeast) before starting, since nearly every question in the packet depends on that vocabulary rather than just north/south/east/west

Skills covered

Compass-direction map reading — students locate cities and features using cardinal and intermediate directions (e.g., 'the city located directly southwest of Cordoba').
Political geography of South America — students identify each country's bordering nations and capital city across all 14 countries.
Physical geography identification — students locate oceans, rivers, and mountain ranges such as the Andes, Amazon River, and Lake Titicaca.
Map-marking conventions — students underline, circle, trace, or draw symbols in specified colors to record findings directly on the map.

Good to know

Questions teachers ask about this resource

Does every country in the bundle follow the same question format?

Yes — each of the 14 countries gets its own map, a page of 6 to 11 direction-based questions (find, underline, circle, or trace a feature), and its own set of correct responses for the teacher, so the format stays consistent from Argentina through Venezuela.

What kinds of map actions do the questions ask students to perform, beyond writing an answer?

Students underline a named city in orange, circle a feature in black or purple, trace a river in blue, or draw a red star on a capital city, in addition to writing short answers for borders, oceans, and features.