Cool Gift of the Day
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
What it is:
A new kind of globe that's filled with activities, games and information about the world.
Why we love it:
When we were kids, we had a globe in our house. The globe we had, produced in 1927, had been thoughtfully passed down to us by our grandparents, who appreciated the need of the young to understand the shape of the world. However, we were ten years old before we discovered that French West Africa wasn't a country anymore, and by the time we found out that our map of Germany was inaccurate, it suddenly became correct again. So to spare future generations our confusion in geography class, we recommend a slightly more modern globe. You can't get much more modern than this Oregon Scientific Smartglobe, which not only reflects the current map of the world, but also receives updated information and recent world news via the internet. It also comes equipped with a flag guide, a touch pen to help you explore specific areas of the world, and high quality audio information of all kinds. Filled with learning activities and games, this isn't so much a globe as an entire geography course in spherical form. For curious kids, this is a gift which puts the world quite literally at their fingertips.