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Teaching at Every Level with Data-Rich Digital Maps

by Andrew Roush
written by Andrew Roush

If you’ve read my previous posts here on TechNotes, you may be able to guess that I’m a big fan of maps. Not only is geographic literacy a required part of many social studies standards, using maps can also help learners make visual connections with the sometimes abstract thoughts, ideas, and facts that maps can represent, from population to the physical landscape, economic factors or cultural ones. The critical thinking that using maps creates can be a help for any teacher at any level and in any subject, not just geography.

Maps become even richer sources of inspiration, understanding, and analysis when we add data to geography.

Learning Across Subjects

Moreover, subject teachers beyond social studies can make extensive and effective use of maps that include other information, along with physical representation of a place. Science educators in particular can use maps to visualize change over time or understand the science behind the physical world.

As the National Association of Geoscience Teachers (NAGT) puts it:

Using maps in the classroom invites curiosity, encourages exploration and inspires problem solving. Maps can be used to explore a multitude of topics and can incorporate visual learning, spatial thinking and quantitative skills into a lesson. Read on to explore vivid imagery from maps and learn how our online lessons integrate mapping and help you create innovative lessons.

“Teaching with Maps,” NAGT via https://serc.carleton.edu/k12/maps.html

Of course, understanding maps, along with charts and graphs, is vital for engaged and active participants in society — the kind of people educators hope to create. As Daniel C. Edelson of Esri writes:

Also like reading and basic math, learning to read a map is a foundational skill that is an essential prerequisite for subsequently developing a wide range of knowledge and skills. A brief review of the media that children see in their schools, homes, and communities reveals how frequently maps are used to convey important information and relationships. In the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress in Geography (conducted in 2010), 58 percent of fourth grade teachers reported that they use maps or globes in their instruction at least once a week.

For this reason, a delay in learning to read maps or a lack of proficiency in reading maps can be an obstacle to academic and intellectual progress.

“The Importance of Teaching Children to Read Maps,” Daniel C. Edelson. https://www.esri.com/about/newsroom/arcnews/the-importance-of-teaching-children-to-read-maps/

Regarding science education, the Science Education Research Center (SERC) at Carleton College describes maps as way to teach data collection and comparison in science, as evidenced in this activity. They also offer links to useful science and mapping related tools, like customizable maps, maps of geologic information, and much more.

Mapping the Effect

One great advantage of maps is that they can quickly and visually represent complex situations or ideas. With modern technologies, apps, and tools, we can combine the easy-to-digest information of an infographic with a geographic overlay of space: a data-rich map.

Effective geography teaching includes not only the use of maps, but multimedia, project-based learning and more. This kind of focus, especially if paired with a “whole school” approach involving service projects and cross-subject learning, can help build (PDF) good citizenship skills and information literacy, too.

Maps are flexible tools. Students can interact with them in a number of ways and using a number of techniques (PDF) for meaningful instruction. These could include PBL, group discussions, field trips, and more. A 2007 suggests that “interactive maps show promise in making the complexities of the social sciences (especially historical geography) more interesting to students, and easier to visualize and understand, without demanding significant investments by schools,” and found that interactive maps could have a stronger impact than paper maps.

A two-group experiment examined this potential for the 7th Grade Utah Studies curriculum. After completing an exercise to analyze possible historical and geographical causes of settlement patterns in Utah, students using interactive maps showed significantly better improvement between a pretest and posttest than students using paper maps. Although some of the test results were inconclusive and highlighted technological and resource obstacles to the widespread adoption of interactive mapping in the classroom, it has been shown to help students learn social studies in a deeper, more
engaging manner.

Plewe, Brandon & Taylor, Whitney. (2006). The Effectiveness of Interactive Maps in Secondary Historical Geography Education. Cartographic Perspectives. 55. 16-33. 10.14714/CP55.325.

For Elementary Learners

National Geographic’s Map Skills for Elementary Students is a great place to find map-related lessons and activities that develop spatial reasoning, which can help build math skills in young learners.

Spatial thinking is one of the most important skills that students can develop as they learn geography, Earth, and environmental sciences. It also deepens and gives a more complete understanding of history and is linked to success in math and science. Young students also enhance their language skills as they collaborate and communicate about spatial relationships. Students who develop robust spatial thinking skills will be at an advantage in our increasingly global and technological society. 

“Map Skills for Elementary Students,” National Geographic. https://www.nationalgeographic.org/education/map-skills-elementary-students/

Spatial reasoning is a vital skill for young learners, and geography education, including highly visual maps, can help, especially when thoughtfully assessed. Looking to match maps with your age group? Check out these tips on developmentally appropriate geography from the National Council for the Social Studies.

Infographic Upgrades

For those able to subscribe to a service that provides many different information-dense maps, the Data Atlas of the World may be a good choice. The maps included on this site are built in Adobe Illustrator with data imported from Microsoft Excel. The maps and visualizations are produced by Carrie Osgood, a Pulitzer Prize-nominated visual data journalist and professor.

maps

By combining maps with data, students can visualize multiple ideas at once, including things across space and time. You can check out some free samples to get a sense of whether these tools are right for your students. If you’re interested in subscribing, yearly, monthly, and weekly options are available. Educators looking to design their in-person learning environment can also purchase posters of the Data Atlas of the World maps.

Going Further with Visme

Beyond just maps, the free online platform Visme includes timelines, graphic design elements, videos, and more. Notably, its automatic map generator is easy to use and includes a number of templates. Available as a limited free version or a more robust paid version, Visme includes stock imagery, animations, data visualization templates, and many other graphical gewgaws to enhance geography lessons.

Besides maps, a number of presentation tools are also available. Here’s how one high school biology teacher uses Visme, or how an instructional technologist uses it to build interactive courses.

Unearthing More Possibilities

For educators looking to build their professional learning on the subject, several professional, corporate, and nonprofit organizations offer resources for teaching with maps. Check out the list below.

Phoenix7777Own work / CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)

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interactive maps
Content AreasWeb 2.0 Tool

Bringing Geography to Life with Interactive Maps

by Andrew Roush
written by Andrew Roush

Geography plays a crucial role in connecting the social studies disciplines, giving students a concrete understanding of how people move and interact, how the landscape can shape behavior and social structures, and more broadly, how the world we live in today came to be.

But year after year, the same headlines seem to appear:

“U.S. Students Are Really Bad at Geography”

“Most Young Americans Can’t Pass a Test on Global Affairs—Can You?”

“New Study Shows U.S. Students Miss Boat on Geography”

The good news is that ed tech can help us make geography, a foundation social studies area, more engaging for learners. Despite challenges, a student’s understanding of the intersection between physical and social worlds is vital in informing their understanding of history, civics, even life and earth sciences. All of those are brought together with interactive maps that facilitate active learning.

Setting the Standard

The importance and interdisciplinary nature of geography is made clear in the TEKS, the statewide educational standards in TCEA’s home state of Texas. An understanding of geography is included in standards from kindergarten through high school graduation.

Joseph Kerski, of the GIS firm Esri and a former president of the National Council for Geographic Education (NCGE), calls geography more than just “a ‘nice to have’ subject for an already-crowded educational curriculum.” Instead, he claims, it  bolsters “the critical-thinking skills, technology skills, citizen skills, and life skills that underpin all other disciplines. It is essential for grappling with the essential issues of our time.”

interactive maps

A Trusted Navigator

Technology can help bring geography to life. There’s no need for maps to be static. In fact, they can be dynamic, even interactive. That’s the premise behind MapMaker Interactive, a hands-on learning site developed by National Geographic. By pairing National Geographic’s world-class maps with powerful customization tools, educators can mark, label, bookmark, and save maps that are custom-built to match lesson plans.

Students studying the Great Migration, for example, can automatically measure distances from the population centers of the Deep South to urban areas in the north and west by drawing a line between two points. Further, they can add pins, tags, and images. Even adding a population density overlay is simple and demonstrates the lasting influences of the historic movement of African Americans in the 20th century.

Just about any social studies lesson can be enhanced with custom maps. Let students create their own, or bookmark and save maps for use in future instruction.

The Cartographer’s Toolkit

interactive mapsinteractive mapsinteractive mapsinteractive mapsinteractive maps

With the basics out of the way, here are a few of the tools built into MapMaker Interactive:

  • Country Facts and Flags: This allows students to absorb basic national facts while also customizing border colors to make a unique, personal map layer.
  • Custom Text, Photos, Videos: Students can use a vast array of markers and shapes to tell stories or display layers of data.
  • Saving Custom Maps: You must provide an email address to save a map and generate a link to edit and share it.
  • Pins, Markers, and Custom Drawings: Maps can be edited and adjusted in a number of ways with self-made labels, markers, lines, boxes, and more.
  • Pre-Made Layers: Want to see the population density of Denmark? A map of big cat territory around the world? An overlay of the African American population in 1960? MapMaker comes with all that and more. You can even adjust the opacity of these layers.

Scouting the Terrain

It’s a powerful tool, to be sure, and this brief introduction couldn’t cover everything that MapMaker is capable of. Luckily, National Geographic has an entire playlist of video tutorials outlining the tool’s features, so you can learn how to best to implement it in your classroom.

What’s more, National Geographic also provides a number of written tutorials outlining everything from how to create “geotours”—a set of mapped bookmarks—to charting the biodiversity of the Amazon River basin.

Going Deeper Into Interactive Maps

For those looking for more, National Geographic Education also offers a number printable, black and white, one-page maps that emphasize a number of thematic components. You can access those here (requires Flash). In addition, educators can access large maps, printable in sections, that students can work together to compile and fill with information by drawing or coloring directly on the map, similar to the digital tools offered in MapMaker.

Looking for more geographic fun?

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