Seterra

Outstanding content and a straightforward interface make Seterra an oddly compelling geography-quiz program. You can test your knowledge of world cities, capital cities, countries, geographical features, and flags. Most quiz types are broken out by region, such as Australia and Northern Africa. The game gives you a number of chances to guess, color-coding the correct answer by how many times you picked wrong. After three wrong guesses, the correct answer lights up green; when you click it, it turns red. This creates an easy visual representation of which areas you need to study more. The high-score tables provide a subtle but effective spur to learn. We had only two small quibbles: we would have liked a desktop icon option, and sometimes the place names overlap and obscure nearby location dots. Anyone interested in learning more about our world, especially students, can get sucked into Seterra's spell.