All maps have bias.
Do students get to explore that when they color and copy their maps?
I wanted to create a lesson that forced students to make a map and consider the ways they represented ideas with it. This would be the first step in exploring the biases of maps and how maps aren’t a neutral display of information.
The Challenge: Make a map of Ancient Greece with no written words on the map that includes a title, Athens and Sparta.
The Lesson Plan
Background information:
What’s the point: Students getting to create with their hands in a World History Ancient Civilization class. For students to get to explore the construction of a map and its symbols. For students to consider how to make maps and make them accessible.
Who is it for? Middle School Ancient Civilization World History students
Students will learn Where Athens and Sparta are. Challenges of map making. That they are and can be geographers.
Why is this a good way to learn this? It’s to make something meaningful and making in particular is important because students get to play with ideas and understand potential limitations. (Resnick, 2017) My hope in making a map as oppose to just coloring one, that this will feel more meaningful to students. I also hope that students will have a different perspective when engaging with maps outside my classroom, they’ll consider the process to making them and have an eye towards accessibility.
The Design Thinking Process Guide that I’ve read recently is on my mind as I build this lesson. Students in this lesson have intentional time to ideate or brainstorm and that’s valuable in order to go beyond obvious solutions. (Institute of Design at Stanford, 2010) By making students ideate and brainstorm before jumping in I hope students will consider multiple solutions and don’t just run with the first idea that pops into their head.
I think of the quote, “Build to think and test to learn.” (Institute of Design at Stanford, 2010) They’ll also be prototyping their ideas. In constructing this map they are considering accessibility and multiple ways to represent key components of maps. In testing their ideas out, they get to learn what does and doesn’t work and how map making can be intentional and creative.
“The meaning of ‘knowing’ has shifted from being able to remember and repeat information to being able to find and use it.” is another quote that comes to mind, this one by Herber Simon. (Committee on the Developments of Science on Learning, 2000, p. 5) It’s why I want student to move beyond coloring and copying maps. That skill isn’t as valuable to a broader world as being able to creatively approach a challenge, to understand bias and the why behind certain aspects of a map and the mindset that it’s ok to try and fail in creating something new.
Consider too the ways that initial learning is necessary (Committee on the Developments of Science on Learning, 2000, p. 53) The intentional research time at the beginning of the lesson is crucial. They need time to learn where Athens and Sparta are before they try to transform, remix and creatively approach this challenge. Analyzing and learning about maps in the bell work/do now gives them a jumping off point of how maps typically look and what features are used to communicate well with an audience.
Let’s Unpack TPACK: Here’s a video explaining TPACK:
(Robertson, 2013)
Here’s how this lesson will address TPACK:
Ancient Greek Map Challenge: The Lesson
As students walk in, have them write a sentence addressing each of the See. Think. Wonder. questions.
When class begins, facilitate student sharing about their observations, thoughts and pondering.
Review learning target with students.
Alert them that as they walk out today as an exit ticket, they'll need to point these out on a blank map of Ancient Greece.
Issue the challenge. Emphasize that unlike the maps from the Do Now/Bell Work there can be no written words ON the map that the students create today.
Provide students with options they can pursue during this challenge. Emphasize they're free to try various approaches. Link resources (and possible show) for how to use a Makey Makey if you've not previous given opportunities in the past.
Pass out Brainstorm/Research worksheet. Give students 5 minutes to ideate and research. Share with them that after they'll have time to create and after that they'll share where their creations at so far.
Put a 30 minute timer on and encourage students to begin prototyping and trying things out. While students work, circle the room. Keep your hands in your pockets. Prompt students with questions if they approach you feeling stuck.
Give students a time to share their creations with each other and set up for the gallery walk.
Students will walk around the room and engage with others' maps. Facilitate a quick sharing out of what people appreciated about other maps.
**If more time: Consider reflecting on the map designing experience as a class.
Students clean up.
Exit Ticket as they leave: Stand at the door with a blank Ancient Greece Map. Ask students to either point out Athens or Sparta (or both) as they leave.
Materials:
Scissors
Play Dough
Dice (Physical or Virtual)
Optional: Paperclips/ coins/something conductive to support Makey Makey Creations
Other building materials for physical maps
Possible Approaches to the Challenge:
Makey Makey Test:
I was able to use a coin and the Makey Makey Sampler (Here's a screencast of how to use it)
Play Dough Test:
Play Dough can be used in so many ways to tackle this challenge. Here I wrote "Athens" with Play Dough and used it to connect words written on a piece of paper. This could also be helpful in adding topography.
Puzzle Test
Symbols can be used in place of words and puzzles can take many forms in addressing the challenge.
My Process Making This Lesson:
Initially I wanted to make this a bigger project. Include video editing and a light up map option (like one might find a museum). As I began empathizing with my audience, I realized that video editing would be too time consuming for the time I was anticipating giving in class. Later as I began prototyping the light up map, I realized I didn’t have the resources to do it. Both of these stages, the empathizing and prototyping are steps in the Design Thinking Process. (Institute of Design at Stanford, 2010)
I really enjoyed prototyping various approaches to the challenge to see if they were feasible with the materials and time constraints I was giving students. I was happy to have so many options that worked relatively quickly. These are the images and video above of possible approaches to the challenge.
Variations that could also work:
Offering more or less options to students.
This can be in light of supplies you have access to or a desire for students to challenge themselves and use a piece of tech like the Makey Makey. You could require that they incorporate a Makey Makey in some way or pull it from the options all together.
Allow them to write one word on the map
Do this over several days instead of just one lesson.
Bring in a meaningful audience to the map.
Add more city-states or other components to the list of requirements - possibly pulling them from the dice challenge extensions.
Not giving them a blank map at all. Having them construct it all on their own
Consider opening up options for students to create virtual maps, interactive ones online.
What I learned: Making things is fun and also stretching. I’ve been learning lately that students need more time to try out ideas and fail. Getting to do that with this lesson plan both made me more excited about doing it and led to what I believe is a better product than just running with the first idea that came to mind. If it helped me accomplish a challenge, then I should also extend it to my students. So I’m going to give students more time and more opportunities to make and create with their hands this coming school year.
Suggestions: You know your students. Do what works for them. Pair them up, have them work individually. Write out step by step directions for particular students with special needs. Create a lesson on using Makey Makey the day before. Better: hand students a Makey Makey and have them play around with it. (Resnick, 2010)
Next Steps for me;
Try this out with my students during our Ancient Greece unit
Continue to create things on Canva
Consider more ways to incorporate #MakerEd in my World History classroom
Any suggestions for me? I’d be happy to hear from you!
Bonus Tools:
My introduction to how interesting maps are and their biases
A tool to compare the “true size” of countries to one another
Sources:
Committee on the Developments of Science on Learning. (2000). How people learn:
Brain, mind, experience, and school. (J. D. Bransford, M. S. Donovan, & J. W.
Pellegrino, Eds.) (Expanded). National Acad. Press.
Institute of Design at Stanford. (2010). An Introduction to Design Thinking PROCESS GUIDE. Hasso Plattner Institute of Design.
Resnick, M. (2017). Lifelong kindergarten: Cultivating creativity through projects, passion, peers, and play. MIT Press.
Robertson, Candace. TPACK in 2 Minutes. www.youtube.com,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FagVSQlZELY. Accessed 4 July 2022.
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