Map Maker, Map Maker, Make Me a Map
Teaching map skills is still a must, but these lessons have a modern twist.
By Erin Bailey
Even as we trade the paper version for digital representations, maps remain an important tool in everyday life. We use road maps, political maps, time zone maps, area code maps, street maps, and mental maps every day. Without them we’d be, well...lost. Teaching children to read and understand maps is part of the Common Core’s literacy goals. Here are a few ideas for pushing those lessons further.
High/Low
As primary learners begin to explore their world, create temperature maps together. This kind of visual presentation of information allows students to see relationships between climate and latitude.
- First, prepare a map of the USA by affixing a piece of Velcro to selected cities. Make sure that all regions of the country are represented.
- Laminate squares of cardstock so they can be written on with dry erase markers and wiped off again. You will need to attach a second piece of Velcro to these squares.
- Next, pick a representative city within each region of the United States: Northeast, Southeast, Upper Midwest, Lower Midwest, Gulf States, Northwest, West, Southwest, Alaska, and Hawaii. Participants will be making a line graph of the high and low temperatures of these selected cities.
- Assign pupils the task of finding the high and low temperatures of the cities on your map for several days or weeks.
Each day learners will write their cities’ high/low on a square and attach it to the map. Over time, children will begin to recognize that northern latitudes are cooler, while southern latitudes are warmer.
Interactive Maps
An engaging way for students to explore a place is to create geotours using National Geographic’s online MapMaker Interactive. Participants can research points of interest, organize their information, and then embed links to lead the viewer on a tour. Your class can create tours based on historical sites, local attractions, or geographic features. Another way to use this tool is to create GeoStories which allow learners to map the lives of important people. Imagine your students learning about John F. Kennedy and creating a map that traces the important moments in his life.
Another feature of the MapMaker Interactive can be used to see relationships between two factors:
- Plate tectonics and volcanoes
- Population density and precipitation
- Surface elevation and surface temperature
Learners can also create maps specific to a particular lesson, such as agricultural products or natural resources.
Land Satellite Pictures
As climate change and natural disasters have altered the planet’s landscape, NASA has been documenting the changes. For learners, having the opportunity to view images of a place at several points in time develops a deeper understanding of how humans interact with and impact the earth. With NASA’s collection of images, middle school and secondary students can compare maps in order to track changes over time. For example, they can see the devastation left behind when wild fires sweep through a region, how a flood changes the geography of an area, or the urban growth of the southwestern United States. To extend comprehension, ask students to predict what the next map will look like.
An intriguing way to consider these maps is as works of art. Just like super-magnified images of cells or microscopic organisms, land satellite pictures can be startlingly beautiful. Oceans and clouds, deserts and river deltas are appreciated with a new eye when viewed from above. The colors, lines, and textures give an abstract quality to an earth that is anything but. NASA has put together a collection that inspired me to try to create a picture of my own. After checking out the PDF online, invite young artists to create their own masterpieces.
For more mapping lessons, check out these resources on Lesson Planet.
Elementary and middle school pupils will enjoy an interactive lesson that has them analyze pictures, use previous knowledge, and practice longitude and latitude. Using pictures from United Nation’s World Heritage sites, participants try to locate the place using geographic clues such as vegetation, animals, and cultural components.
In an engaging resource that is geared for third to sixth grade, participants use critical thinking and creativity to find out why a blue whale migrates to a specific place. Using actual satellite-tracked migration routes, learners draw their whale’s journey, measure the distance using map scale, and brainstorm reasons for migration to write a “whale tale.”
Tracking the spread of disease falls to a group of scientists called epidemiologists. Here, secondary students work in small groups to map the spread of HIV/AIDS. Then they analyze the distribution to speculate about the origins of the disease.