16 replies to this topic

[Claude]

I made some maps to get the kids in my daughter's kindergarten class excited about maps and I thought I'd share the photos with you all. I made a few different maps for them to play with and they really loved coloring them.

One was a giant Fuller projection of the world with tabs and fold lines that I printed on the plotter and brought in to the class as a long term project to help the kids learn about projections and countries. They will definitely have fun coloring it and creating the big cube-shaped globe. The teacher requested a bunch more of these monsters to spread around the whole school and use in other grade levels.

The other two which you can see in the pictures are a heart-shaped projection for Valentine's Day (a "cordiform" projection for the geeks out there) and a map of north america with a bunch of dinosaurs stomping around. The kids really enjoyed it (as did I) and I attached them to this post for any of you who might like to do the same at a classroom or just for your own kids.

Click here to go to the pictures: http://energyxyz.blogspot.com/

If you all like, I can also post a link to the Fuller globe set up to print, cut out, and fold into a cube shaped globe soon.

Attached Files

•  Dinosaur_map.pdf   294.62K   208 downloads
•  I_Heart_World.pdf   396.82K   167 downloads

[MapMedia]

Nicely done. Now if only that T.Rex in New England could head over to Wall Street for a proper feed, we'd be set!

[Dennis McClendon]

I see that one of the dinosaurs has been gnawing at the coastline of British Columbia, and left it in tatters.

[Claude]

i actually had to move some of the dinos after the class because the kids nailed me for having a couple of dinosaurs in the ocean. Those kids barely know what country they are in but they won't be fooled when it comes to dinosaurs.

[Hans van der Maarel]

i actually had to move some of the dinos after the class because the kids nailed me for having a couple of dinosaurs in the ocean. Those kids barely know what country they are in but they won't be fooled when it comes to dinosaurs.

It's all about priorities

Thanks for sharing!

[Gretchen Peterson]

That's really great. My daughter is in first grade and doing a geography unit soon so I will suggest these to her teacher!

--Gretchen Peterson
www.petersongis.com

[David T]

Great job, Claude. This gets me thinking about doing the same for my daughter (of course, she's only a year old, so I still have some time - too bad it's going to go quickly!)

If you all like, I can also post a link to the Fuller globe set up to print, cut out, and fold into a cube shaped globe soon.

I'd love to see it. I'm thinking GIS Day...

[loximuthal]

If you all like, I can also post a link to the Fuller globe set up to print, cut out, and fold into a cube shaped globe soon.

That would be great if you did. I do Career Day at all my kids' schools, and try to get in to talk about maps and cartography to all their classes, too. That would be a terrific visual for them.

[stefan]

For a similar project, here's a map I made for a presentation on maps for my son's second grade class: a hypothetical map location with common map symbols and symbology. Used for discussion of What is a map? What are symbols? What might this mean? etc.

Attached Files

•  Common_Map_Symbols.pdf   262.62K   79 downloads

[Rick Dey]

When doing special presentations for Take Your Children to Work Day or when giving talks in classrooms, I've frequently requested a list of names prior to the event. I'm then able to take an existing map and replace feature names with those of the children. We use the map to learn about maps and then usually somewhere along the process someone will say "I see my name!" Of course at that point you've lost the group as they go looking for their own names and those of their friends.

[Claude]

So it only took me another 2 years to post this cut-out globe in Bucky Fuller's funky Dymaxion projection...what can i say, I'm heading back to do another presentation to the kids and this unfinished project came to mind. Hope you all can make use of this. It is formatted to print on 11x17 as it's pretty small when built off of an 8.5x11"

Attached Files

•  Fuller_globe_Kids_Everybody.pdf   918.27K   81 downloads

[SaultDon]

So it only took me another 2 years to post this cut-out globe in Bucky Fuller's funky Dymaxion projection...what can i say, I'm heading back to do another presentation to the kids and this unfinished project came to mind. Hope you all can make use of this. It is formatted to print on 11x17 as it's pretty small when built off of an 8.5x11"

Very cool!

I put one of these on my desk at work, everyone is jealous..

[Dennis McClendon]

In Ninth Grade, my World History teacher gave the assignment to "draw a world map." As you can guess, on Parents Night the bulletin board was covered with 27 maps in Mercator or Robinson or whatever, traced or copied from the World Book encyclopedia—and one drawn using the Dymaxion projection.

[ToyElf]

What a great idea and the big smiles on their faces says it all! My young grandson and I are learning about maps so we both appreciate you sharing your idea.

[Hans van der Maarel]

Resurrecting this thread:

I've just signed up for the Geoweek, this is a week in may where businesses in the "geo" industry connect with teenagers (10-15 years old) to show them what the field is like. So... basically I'm looking for suggestions for an activity to offer the kids.

I like Claude's Fuller globe, as well as the 'Draw a map of the world' that Dennis mentioned. Another thing might be some to do some data capture with GPS and then walk through the entire process of creating a map (but there's a whole lot of logistics there that I'd rather not get involved in).