Mapping My World

Prior Experience: mapping our classroom

Literature:
LOWER EL: Bear About Town, On the Town: A Community Adventure, Alphabet City, City by Numbers, Me on the Map, As the Crow Flies: A First Book of Maps
MIDDLE EL: Zoom, Re-Zoom, My Map Book, Roads, Mapping Penny’s World, Map Mania: Discovering Where You Are & Getting to Where You Aren’t
UPPER EL: The World Is Flat: Not!, Fun with GPS, What is a Community from A to Z?, Small Worlds: Maps and Map Making

Process:
1. Small groups of students draw the shape of their community on large butcher paper in the center and leave room around the edges.
2. Students record (pictures or words) places that are important to the community inside the outline & share with their group.
3. Teacher encourages further thinking with questions. (prompts are in order by developmentally appropriate)
LOWER EL: Where have you been in the last day? (neighborhood, school, store, gas station, restaurant, ice cream shop, etc.)
MIDDLE EL: What places do you pass by each day? (post office, fire station, police station, museum, library, park, etc.)
UPPER EL: What places are necessary in our community that you may not regularly notice? (water treatment plant, protected areas, historic markers, bodies of water, power plant, construction, etc.)
4. In small groups, students visit the important places in their community and their homes. While they are at that location they will...
*take a GIS measurement to record its exact location
*use digital cameras to photograph the location
*make observational notes on the location such as sights, sounds, smells, textures, human impact, living & non-living things, etc.
5. After collecting important place information, groups will organize their data using a grid system so as to make it a more managable parts-to-whole task.
6. Groups will make a map of their community that includes...
LOWER EL: lines of longitude and latitude, photos of places, major roads
MIDDLE EL: above list AND coding for government buildings
UPPER EL: above list AND coding for infrastructure/utilities
7. Finally, individual students can write about their community. Some possible choice include but are not limited to...
LOWER EL: diary format from perspective of , story spinoff of Bear About Town
MIDDLE EL: research a local historical significance of street, building, or park names
UPPER EL: persuasive format to attract tourists to come visit or new residents to come to live, should issue that they discover along the process such as “Should there be a 4-way stop at the intersection of Main and State St.?”,

Continuing Experience: add to maps throughout the year after other field experiences in the community