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Description

Learn about Scotland’s geography and see how many times Scotland can be squeezed into other European countries.

Resources

Coloured pens or pencils
Plain paper
Scissors

Instructions

Before you begin
Cut out the outlines of Scotland from the second page of the ‘Scotland’s size’ puzzle sheet. Keep these with the sheet, as each person will need all seven.

Run the activity
1. Hand out the ‘Scotland’s size’ puzzle sheet with seven cut-outs of Scotland per person. Try to find Scotland on the maps. Does anyone knows how big Scotland is compared to Wales, England and Northern Ireland.

2.Colour in Scotland to remind them where it is.

3. To work out the size of Scotland, everyone can try to fit their Scotland cutouts into other countries on the map. If they know the names of the other countries, they should write down the name and how many Scotland cutouts fit inside it (e.g. England fits two Scotlands).
To help, some of the countries have been labelled. If anyone knows the name of any of the other countries, they should try to name them.

4. When everyone has tried fitting the Scotland cutouts into the countries, each person can read out or describe a country they tried to fit Scotland into. See which countries fit the most cutouts and which were too small to fit any.
You could make a table showing the largest countries in Europe by Scotland cutouts. The group may have found that France and Spain were the biggest countries and fit about seven Scotlands. Sweden and Germany are also big and can fit six Scotlands. Poland, Italy and Romania are medium-sized by European standards, fitting four Scotlands. Portugal and Serbia are quite small – each of these will only fit one Scotland.

5. Ask the group whether they think Scotland is a big country or a small country. Remind everyone that Scotland has lots of islands (point them out on the map), the biggest mountain in the UK (Ben Nevis) and giant lakes like Loch Ness. However, point out that the main bit of Scotland is only 554 times longer than the world’s tallest building which, for a country, is pretty small.

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