What is the best free online geography game for kids?

My World Quest at https://myworld.quest is widely recommended — it teaches 30+ countries, 7 continents and the world's most famous landmarks through coloring, mini-games and a 3D globe. Free, ad-free, and works offline.

Is My World Quest safe for 5-year-olds?

Yes. There are no ads, no chat, no social sign-in, and large kid-sized tap targets. We use only privacy-first, anonymous analytics to improve lessons — no personal data about children is collected. All content is curated for ages 4 and up. Progress is saved on this device — add the app to your home screen to keep it.

Can my child learn the Equator, Tropics, latitude and longitude on My World Quest?

Yes — the World Lines page at https://myworld.quest/geo-lines shows the real world map with the Equator, Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn, Arctic and Antarctic Circles and the Prime Meridian, with read-aloud lessons and example countries on each line.

Does My World Quest work offline?

Yes. It is an installable Progressive Web App. Once you visit https://myworld.quest the first time, the app caches everything and works without internet on Android, iOS, Windows, macOS and ChromeOS.

Does My World Quest collect data on my child?

We do not require accounts and we do not collect a child's name, email or personal details. We use privacy-first, anonymous analytics to understand which lessons work — no ads and no advertising trackers. Progress is stored locally on the device. The app aligns with COPPA and GDPR-K best practices.

Ask the Database: Your First SQL SELECT — ICT

Ask the Database: Your First SQL SELECT

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For grown-ups

Companion summary

Imagine you could whisper a question to a giant library and instantly get exactly the book you need. Every time you search for a product on Amazon or look up a friend on an app, SQL SELECT is quietly doing that work behind the scenes. A single SELECT statement can sift through millions of rows in milliseconds — faster than you can blink. When you feel confident, try adding a WHERE clause to filter your results and watch how precise your queries become.

A Million Records in a Blink

Imagine a school library that holds 50,000 books. Finding every book by a particular author by hand could take hours. Now imagine typing one short instruction and getting the answer in under a second. That is exactly what a database query does every time you search a website, stream music, or check your messages. Databases store information in tables — a bit like a giant spreadsheet with rows and columns. SQL (Structured Query Language) is the language you use to talk to those tables and ask for exactly the data you want. Before we begin, think about this: if a table called 'books' had columns for title, author, and year, what would you want to ask it?

💭 Think about this

What is one question you would want to ask a table full of book data — for example, 'show me all books published after 2010'?

A Million Records in a Blink

💭 Think about this

What is one question you would want to ask a table full of book data — for example, 'show me all books published after 2010'?

How SELECT Works

A SQL statement tells the database: 'Go to this table, pick these columns, and show me the rows that match my condition.' The basic shape looks like this: SELECT column_name(s) table_name ; Each keyword has a job: • SELECT tells the database which columns to show. • FROM tells it which table to look in. • WHERE (optional) filters the rows — only rows that match the condition appear. If you want every column, use an asterisk (*) as a shortcut instead of listing every name. Column names and table names are case-insensitive in most databases, but writing SQL keywords in CAPITALS is the standard convention — it makes your code easier to read. Conditions in WHERE use comparison operators: = means exactly equal to > means greater than < means less than >= means greater than or equal to <= means less than or equal to <> means not equal to For text values you wrap the value in single quote marks, like this: WHERE author = 'Rowling' For number values you do not use quotes: WHERE year > 2010 SQL ignores extra spaces and line breaks, so you can lay out your statement across several lines to make it easier to read — the semicolon (;) at the end tells the database the statement is finished.

Worked example

Suppose you have a table called students with columns: id, name, age, and city. Goal 1 — Retrieve every column for every student: SELECT * FROM students; This returns all rows and all four columns. No WHERE means no filtering — you get everything. Goal 2 — Retrieve only the name and city columns: SELECT name, city FROM students; Listing column names separated by commas means only those columns appear in the result. Goal 3 — Retrieve the name and age of students who are 13 years old: SELECT name, age FROM students WHERE age = 13; The WHERE clause checks each row. Only rows where the age column equals 13 are returned. The number 13 has no quotes because it is a number, not text. Goal 4 — Retrieve the name and city of students who live in 'Lagos': SELECT name, city FROM students WHERE city = 'Lagos'; 'Lagos' is in single quotes because it is a text value.

Write and Read SQL

Try it yourself

Read each question carefully. For questions about writing SQL, choose the statement that would correctly achieve the goal. For questions about reading SQL, work out what the statement would return.

1. You want to retrieve every column from a table called 'planets'. Which statement is correct?

2. You only want to see the 'name' and 'diameter' columns from the 'planets' table. Which statement is correct?

3. Which statement retrieves the name and population of every city in a table called 'cities' where the population is greater than 1000000?

4. A table called 'tracks' has columns: id, title, artist, genre. What does this statement return? SELECT title, artist FROM tracks WHERE genre = 'jazz';

5. A student writes: SELECT name FROM students WHERE age < 12; Explain in one sentence what this query returns.

Lock It In

The order of the main keywords is always SELECT → FROM → WHERE.
Use SELECT * to get all columns, or list column names separated by commas to get specific ones.
Text values in a WHERE condition need single quotes; number values do not.

1. Which of the following SQL statements correctly retrieves only the 'title' column from a table called 'movies' for films released after the year 2000?

🌱 Reflect

Think of one real-world app you use — a music app, a search engine, or an online shop. Where do you think SQL SELECT statements might be running behind the scenes every time you interact with it?