Episode Details

366:  Teaching Geopolitics and World Affairs to Teens

Understanding what’s happening in the world is a life skill — it shapes how your teens will vote, travel, and navigate adult conversations. And for college-bound students, being able to speak to current events in scholarship and admissions interviews is a real advantage. In this episode, I share several tech tools for making world affairs come alive in your homeschool, using the Iran conflict as a timely example.

Tools and Resources Mentioned

Ground News — (also available as an app and on Instagram) A solid starting point for current events. Free at the basic level. Headlines are summarized and labeled by political lean (left, center, right), making it a natural fit for media literacy alongside geopolitics.

Google Earth —  Better than Google Maps for geopolitics because it shows geographic features — mountains, waterways, terrain — that explain why certain locations matter strategically.

VesselFinder — Track real-time ship movement around the world. Right now you can watch the dramatic drop in traffic through the Strait of Hormuz (from over 100 ships per day to around five or six). Give each student a different ship to track and check back at mealtimes.

FlightRadar24 — flightradar24.com Watch how airlines are rerouting around Iranian airspace in real time. A great visual for understanding how conflict ripples into everyday life — and a reminder of how a volcanic eruption in Iceland once grounded flights across Europe.

AI (ChatGPT, Claude, etc.) Instead of a broad internet search, have your teens prompt an AI with targeted questions — Iran’s economy, its allies, its neighbors, why oil prices in the US are affected by events in the Middle East. The real advantage: follow-up questions stay in the same conversation, so learning goes deeper without starting over.

Nation States — nationstates.net A free browser-based simulation where students build and run their own country. No email required. Daily events force real governing decisions — and there’s an alliance system that mirrors actual geopolitical dynamics. Forums are present, so preview for your family first.

Politics and War — politicsandwar.com A more in-depth nation-building simulation. Similar concep