Where Do
Where Do They Play?
They Play?
Using NFL Football Teams
to Learn Absolute and
Relative Location
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with the word choice to make it better fit your students’ needs? Have at it!
Thank you,
Chris Mitchell
[email protected]
NAME ________________________
DATE _______________
“Where Do They Play?”
Using NFL Teams to Learn Absolute and Relative Location
Directions: Use the maps in your Social Studies textbooks, atlases from the library, Internet
databases, or Google Earth to determine the location of each NFL team’s home city. Write
your answers on the chart.
Vocabulary Words:
Absolute location is “the exact position of a location on the Earth.” We use latitude and
longitude coordinates to show where places are located. For instance, the city of Atlanta is
located at 33°N, 84°W.
Relative location is “the location of a place as described by places near it.” We use cardinal
directions (North, South, East, West) and intermediate directions (Northwest, Northeast,
Southwest, Southeast) to describe where places are located. For instance, Arizona is
located west of the Mississippi River and southeast of Oregon.
Team Name
Arizona Cardinals
Their Home State
(or District)
Can you name the city
where they play
instead?
Atlanta Falcons
Baltimore Ravens
Buffalo Bills
Carolina Panthers
Chicago Bears
Cincinnati Bengals
Can you name the city
AND state where they
play?
This City’s
Absolute Location
This City’s
Relative Location
Team Name
Their Home State
(or District)
This City’s
Absolute Location
This City’s
Relative Location
Cleveland Browns
Dallas Cowboys
Denver Broncos
Detroit Lions
Green Bay Packers
Houston Texans
Indianapolis Colts
Jacksonville
Jaguars
Kansas City Chiefs
Miami Dolphins
Minnesota Vikings
Can you name the city
where they play
instead?
New Orleans Saints
New York Giants
New York Jets
Created by Christopher Mitchell, [email protected]
Page 2
Team Name
Their Home State
(or District)
This City’s
Absolute
Location
This City’s
Relative Location
Oakland Raiders
Philadelphia Eagles
Pittsburgh Steelers
San Diego Chargers
San Francisco
49ers
Seattle Seahawks
St. Louis Rams
Tampa Bay
Buccaneers
Tennessee Titans
Can you name the city
where they play
instead?
Washington
Redskins
Created by Christopher Mitchell, [email protected]
Page 3
Answer Key:
Team Name
Arizona Cardinals
Atlanta Falcons
Their Home State
(or District)
Can you name the city
where they play
instead?
Phoenix (or Glendale),
AZ
Georgia
This City’s
Absolute Location
33°N, 112°W
(Results may vary. It
depends on what tools
you have at your
disposal. You may
allow students some
leeway with these
answers.)
33°N, 84°W
Baltimore Ravens
Maryland
39°N, 76°W
Buffalo Bills
New York
42°N, 78°W
Can you name the city
and the state where
they play?
Charlotte, North
Carolina
Illinois
35°N, 80°W
Cincinnati Bengals
Ohio
39°N, 84°W
Cleveland Browns
Ohio
41°N, 81°W
Dallas Cowboys
Texas
32°N, 96°W
Denver Broncos
Colorado
39°N, 104°W
Detroit Lions
Michigan
42°N, 83°W
Wisconsin
44°N, 88°W
Texas
29°N, 95°W
Indianapolis Colts
Indiana
39°N, 86°W
Jacksonville Jaguars
Florida
30°N, 81°W
Missouri
39°N, 94°W
Florida
25°N, 80°W
Can you name the city
where they play
instead?
Minneapolis, MN
44°N, 93°W
Carolina Panthers
Chicago Bears
Green Bay Packers
Houston Texans
Kansas City Chiefs
Miami Dolphins
Minnesota Vikings
This City’s
Relative Location
Answers will vary. My
advice is to use a
classroom map and ask
students to describe the
city’s relative location.
Allow the students to
determine if the relative
location is correct.
41°N, 87°W
Created by Christopher Mitchell, [email protected]
Page 4
Team Name
New England Patriots
New Orleans Saints
Their Home State
Can you name the city
AND state where they
play?
Foxboro (or Boston) ,
Massachusetts
Louisiana
This City’s
Absolute Location
42°N, 71°W
29°N, 90°W
New York (or New
Jersey)
They actually play in
neighboring East
Rutherford, NJ.
New York (or New
Jersey)
The Jets and Giants
share a football
stadium.
California
37°N, 122°W
Philadelphia Eagles
Pennsylvania
39°N, 75°W
Pittsburgh Steelers
Pennsylvania
40°N, 80°W
San Diego Chargers
California
32°N, 117°W
San Francisco 49ers
California
37°N, 122°W
Washington
47°N, 122°W
Missouri
47°N, 92°W
Florida
27°N, 82°W
Can you name the city
where they play
instead?
Nashville
District of Columbia
36°N, 86°W
New York Giants
New York Jets
Oakland Raiders
Seattle Seahawks
St. Louis Rams
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Tennessee Titans
Washington Redskins
This City’s
Relative Location
40°N, 74°W
40°N, 74°W
38°N, 77°W
Created by Christopher Mitchell, [email protected]
Page 5
An Idea for an Extension Assignment:
In previous years, I have extended this assignment by asking students to label
these cities onto a blank map of the USA.
Doing so gives them an opportunity to see where professional football teams
are located within geographic regions of the United States. It also gives them a
perspective of how large these cities are and how closely some of them are
located to one another.
You might do this as an enrichment assignment, or you might consider pulling
down a wall map or opening a file on your SMART Board and turning it into a
full-class activity.
There are MANY possibilities for extending this assignment. I’d love to hear
about how you use it.
Created by Christopher Mitchell, [email protected]
Page 6
Updated with an educational technology twist! If you have Google Earth installed
on your classroom computer(s), you can visit each and every NFL football stadium!
Simply, click on the KML file included in this packet and the file should load
automaticaly into Google Earth. Take your students on a 3-D tour today.
(1) Make sure you have Google Earth installed on your computer. If it is not
installed, download it here.
(2) Visit my Teachers Pay Teachers public Dropbox folder by clicking on this link.
You should see the following:
(3) On a Windows-based computer, right-click on the file and select “Save it to
your folder” (or something similar depending on the web browser you are using).
(4) After downloading the file, locate it on your computer. Doubl-click the link. It
should load automatically into Google Earth. You should then see links to all 2
NFL football stadiums pop up in Google Earth. Did you notice the yellow thumb
tacks? Those are the locations of all NFL football stadiums pinned to a “digital
map.” Click on a thumb tack to zoom in and tour each stadium!
Created by Christopher Mitchell, [email protected]
Do you recognize a pattern in your team’s
schedule? What are some advantages to
scheduling a team’s games this way?
Let’s Extend the Lesson:
The NFL regular season lasts sixteen weeks. Find your favorite team’s schedule on NFL.com and map
the city and state locations of the teams they play on the map below.
Road Trippin’
Road Trippin’ Answers
The NFL regular season lasts 16 games, but students will likely find 13 answers. Teams are
scheduled to play division rivals twice during the season.
For example, here is the Buffalo Bills’ 2015 regular season schedule with division rival games
marked in bold type.
Date
Sep. 13
Sep. 20
Sep. 27
Oct. 4
Oct. 11
Oct. 18
Oct. 25
Nov. 8
Nov. 12
Nov. 23
Nov. 29
Dec. 6
Dec. 13
Dec. 20
Dec. 27
Jan. 3
Opponent
vs. Indianapolis Colts
vs. New England Patriots
at Miami Dolphins
vs. New York Giants
at Tennessee Titans
vs. Cincinnati Bengals
at Jacksonville Jaguars
vs. Miami Dolphins
at New York Jets
at New England Patriots
at Kansas City Chiefs
vs. Houston Texans
at Philadelphia Eagles
at Washington Redskins
vs. Dallas Cowboys
vs. New York Jets
Let’s Extend the Lesson Answers (will vary)
Students should recognize a strong regional connection to their team’s football schedules
after completing their maps. In several cases, teams rarely visit opponents on opposite sides
of the country. Teams in the AFC East, for example, commonly play on the East Coast. See the
Buffalo Bills schedule above for evidence of this.
Possible advantages to this scheduling may include: (1) the team’s fan base has less mileage
to travel to see their team’s away games, (2) better TV scheduling opportunities, (3) the
emergence of true regional rivalries (the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cincinnati Bengals, for
instance), and perhaps several more.