Maps 1

I love working with maps. I'm one of those people who has framed maps of favorite places hanging on the wall in my living room. Needless to say, I had fun with this activity. I decided to map out a one-day tour along the lower loop in Yellowstone National Park. The map is based on tours that I used to give visitors all the time. It makes for a long day - especially if traffic is bad - but you really get a good look at the Park and some of its best known features. Anyway, selecting the locations was easy. I just zoomed in and moved from location to location placing pins in the specific spots that I wanted to include in the tour. Like every other Google app I have used, I found this one to be very user-friendly.

You can view my map here. If you'd like a little more information, you can click here to read a short description of each stop.

I can definitely imagine using Google Maps in the classroom. For example, I could ask students to create a map of General Lee's move up the Shenandoah Valley and into Gettysburg in 1863. Students could use pins to mark the location of significant events or battles. In creating a map, the students would have the opportunity to align historic events with the existing landscape. Very cool.

Relationship to Standards - the Maps 1 activity relates well to the following standards: 1(a) in that the use of Google Maps in a classroom would allow a teacher to promote, support, and model creative and innovative thinking; 1(c) in that the use of Google Maps in history or geography classes will promote student reflection using collaborative tools to clarify students' conceptual understanding and thinking; and 3(a) in that the use of Google Maps will allow teachers to demonstrate fluency in technology systems and the transfer of current technologies to new technologies. These maps are WAY better than those tired, old flat ones that have been hanging on the wall for the last 20 years!