Where has my stuff been? Mapping consumption with beginning Cultural Anthro students

Being an anthropologist who works primarily in digital, urban, and North American and European contexts, one thing I like to emphasize in my classes is that one doesn't necessarily have to go to the other side of the world to do anthropology - culture can be found anywhere there are people. I also like doing interactive activities; it's great seeing students learn through their own experience! In my Introduction to Cultural Anthropology class, during the week we go over world-systems theory, I like to illustrate this by starting with some of our most familiar objects - the clothes, school supplies, and electronics we have with us on a daily basis. When I've done this activity in the past, I've just had students look up the relevant information online and present it to the class. This time - partly due to the fact that I have become somewhat obsessed with mapping over the course of my fieldwork and data analysis, and partly inspired by the amazing Digital Humanities SoCal meeting I attended a few weeks ago - I decided to make it a little more interactive and a little more visual. I projected the map with a few examples on the screen, and the students were given the following instructions: 1. Find an object you have with you. 2. Answer the following (using the Internet on your laptop or smartphone, or one of your classmates', for parts 1 and 2) to find out the following: - Where was it made? - Where was it designed, or where is the company headquarters? - Where did you buy it? 3. Put these on the map, using a red marker for the first, a yellow marker for the second, and a blue marker for the third. Here's what we came up with (for interactive version, see the link above):

It helped spark an interesting discussion - through a very relatable medium - about where our things come from, the places we are indirectly related to through our things, and the relations among core, periphery, and semi-periphery. Has anyone done anything similar? Has it worked/not worked? Let me know!