Learning Objectives 

Students will: 

• Describe cartography and the role of a cartographer.
• Research and gather information about cartography.
• Compare different types of maps. 
• Analyze a local, national, or world route.
• Plan a map from one destination to another. 
• Create a relief map that represents the route traveled by the explorer.
• Display maps and present cartography information to an audience.

Standards Alignment

National Core Arts StandardsNational Core Arts Standards

Common Core State StandardsCommon Core State Standards

Recommended Student Materials

Editable Documents: Before sharing these resources with students, you must first save them to your Google account by opening them, and selecting “Make a copy” from the File menu. Check out Sharing Tips or Instructional Benefits when implementing Google Docs and Google Slides with students.

• Capture Sheet: Making Maps
• Making a Papier-Mâché Map

Websites

• Google Maps
• Cartography Facts

Teacher Background

Teachers should review the Making a Papier-Mâché Map instructions prior to the lesson. 

Student Prerequisites 

Students should be familiar with maps, landforms, local, and national, or world geography.

Accessibility Notes

Modify handouts and give preferential seating for visual presentations. Allow extra time for task completion.

Engage

1. Engage students in a discussion about directions. Ask students: How do you find your way around an unfamiliar place? (a new neighborhood, a shopping mall, a school building, etc.).

2. Tell students that maps help people find their way through unfamiliar territory. Point out that we use maps today to help us drive, walk, and bike to new destinations. Display Google Maps for students. Have students brainstorm a place they want to go with the school or a city landmark as the starting point. 

3. Ask students what would happen if maps of large areas didn’t exist (whether it is a neighborhood, a state, or a body of water). If you didn’t have a map, you would venture out into uncharted territory? Explain to students that throughout history, certain individuals went into areas that had not been mapped or surveyed by anyone else in their culture.

4. On chart paper or an interactive board, write the word “cartography.” Divide students into groups and give them 3-4 sticky notes. Ask them to brainstorm the meaning of the word. Bring the class together to share their ideas. Tell students cartography is the art and science of making maps and the person that makes these maps is called cartographer.  

Build

1. Tell students that maps have a history of being drawn on walls, paper, and even napkins. Now computers can generate maps to get you almost anywhere. They can be as simple as going from your house to a friend’s house or driving cross-country on a family road trip. Computers have increased the accuracy of directions, landmarks, and the physical features of land. Advanced GPS systems often include speed limits, speed cameras, traffic flow, closures, and accidents. Ask students: When do you use maps? What type of map do you use when you travel with your family?

2. Display printed maps, globes, and share digital maps around the room. Have students walk around and explore the different styles of maps. Ask students to write down any thoughts or details about the maps that catch their attention. What do the colors mean? What symbols do they recognize? How are landforms, bodies of water, topography, human made structures, etc. represented?

3. Distribute the Capture Sheet: Making Maps and break students into small groups or pairs and share the website Cartography Facts. Each group will research and gather information about cartography (making maps). 

4. Have students come together to share three to four facts about their research. Evaluate students' understanding of cartography and map features. 

Apply

1. Create a three-dimensional map to represent a journey as accurately as possible. Students should choose only one route to represent on the map. Explain that they will be using a technique called papier-mâché to create the maps.

2. Students should reference print or digital maps when they make their papier-mâché map of the explorers’ journeys. Since the maps must include topographic features, students should have at least one relief map. Maps can be found using an atlas, websites, or globes.

3. Tell the students that they will construct three-dimensional maps of a route they would travel on a local, national, or world trip. Students will examine maps of the routes they have researched and chart the locations and routes they would need to travel. Students should draft drawings of their maps on large sheets of graph paper. This is a good opportunity to discuss the importance of scale. Explain that scale is the proportion between two sets of dimensions. For example, if a sketch is drawn to scale, its parts are equally smaller or larger than the parts in the original picture. Scale is essential to creating accurate representations of drawings, sketches, and dimensional objects.

4. Review the Making a Papier-Mâché Map instruction with students. Assist the students with the organization of materials they will need for their map. Share the criteria:

- Show the routes traveled from one destination to another.

- Clearly identify the routes with a special color or three-dimensional features.

- Add features such as drawings of boats, ships, animals, people, or other items that emphasize where they are going.

Reflect 

1. Design a map gallery in the classroom or hallway. Have students stand next to their maps and act as cartographers. Invite students or families to visit the map gallery. 

2. Assess students’ knowledge of map-making. Did they show a route from one destination to another? How were routes clearly identified? What features did they include in their maps?