One thing I’ve noticed in the past years is how much map skills have
diminished from class to class with the improvement of technology and things
like Google maps. Students should get more and more practice at reading maps,
not just Google searching (they should be efficient in both of these). At
Lester Prairie the Social Studies department has set a goal to reintroduce
students to the skill of map reading and interpretation. To help us reach this
goal we purchased new World Atlas books.
Some of the maps that we have were out of date and hard to work with
so we bought new atlases through a school grant. They have been awesome to work
with and the students love them. The books are full of maps and other useful
information about different regions of the World. There are worksheets that go
with the book and they do a great job of pushing the students to better
understand a certain region of the World. The eighth grade Global Studies class
as benefitted the most with these new books but other classes have and will
work them more.
With continued use of these great resources, students at Lester
Prairie should become better at using maps. I declare a challenge to the
readers. The next time your drive to some place that you don’t know how to get
to, instead of using your phone or GPS pull out that old map and navigate there
using that.
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