5 Mapping Activities
Chapter Intro
Mapping, in its broadest terms, involves the visual or spatial organization of information. There are many different types of maps that can be created as learning activities, ranging from geographical maps, to concept maps, to hierarchical or process maps. Mapping incorporates a wide range of skill sets, including:
- Critical thinking (e.g., how do I identify and choose data sets for my map, what might the data on this map tell me about this place or about the people who live there, what does the data on this map show me over time, how might the data on this map be biased)
- Interdisciplinarity (e.g., by layering data sets from multiple disciplines or time periods on a map, by showing relationships between people and places)
- Spatial thinking / awareness (spatial thinking plays a role in activities ranging from understanding language and art, to geography and geoscience, to scientific modeling, geometry, astronomy, etc.)
- Data visualization
- Digital storytelling
- Bias awareness (maps are not neutral / ahistorical / apolitical)
- Mapping also offers opportunities to:
- Connect global or big-picture issues and ideas to local communities
- Personalize and humanize learning
- Visualize learning
- Communicate learning
Questions that are helpful to consider as you prepare your mapping activity include:
- What will be the theme and topic for the map, and on what location will students focus? Will you determine the theme, topic, and location, or will students be given the opportunity to choose their own?
- What are the key learning objectives?
- What type of mapping will the activity include? Some possibilities are:
- Simple geographical map with one data layer (e.g., place markers identifying key locations)
- Complex geographical map with multiple data layers (e.g., place markers identifying key locations plus population data)
- Concept map
- Timeline
- Process map
- Site map (e.g., such as for a website or a blueprint for a building)
- Will students work solo or in teams and why?
- What modality and tool do you plan to use and why?
- From what source do you plan for students to gather data for their maps?
- How will students submit and showcase their work? Will their work be viewable only by other members of the class, or will it be shared in a more public forum?
What constitutes data? Where do I find reliable data?
- Data can be related to real-world events, a fictional world, or you can collect (or geocode/georeference) your own data
- Data can be in the form of text, shapefiles, raster files (images), or other data linked to place
- ArcGIS Online has data available for anyone to access, but you need to check the source as any user can share data in the ArcGIS platform
- City, state, federal government, and NGO websites often share place-based data that is accessible to the public
- Organizations like USGS, NIH, and the Census Bureau (TIGER) are also good sources of data
Middlebury resources for data and questions about data include:
- Middlebury Library Maps & GIS Research Guide
- David Rumsey Historical Map Collection
- MiddData
- META Lab (data analytics and research lab at the Middlebury Institute)
Middlebury also has a Data Services Librarian, Ryan Clement, who is a great resource for all things data!
Geographical Mapping
Prep Ahead
Select a topic/theme of focus. This could be any place-based topic that can be visually presented using geographical maps and the layering of data on those maps.
Sample ideas for broad topics/themes include:
- Environmental Studies/Indigenous History
- Politics/Voting
- Environmental Studies/Land Use
- Public Health/COVID
- Human Geography/Migration
Ingredients
- Learning goal(s)
- Prompts/expectations for students
- A geographical mapping tool
- Assessment and/or feedback strategy
Step by Step Instructions
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- Identify your learning goal. Some examples:
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- Identify and visualize relationships between people and places
- Identify and visualize changes in a place over time
- Identify reliable data sources and explain how to assess data
- Raise bias awareness
- Identify and collect your own data to help analyze a complex issue
- Communicate meaning through data visualization
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- Create a prompt/instructions for the activity. Sample prompt:
Choose a topic, guiding question, and specific location (geographic place), and design and create a map or story map that incorporates multiple data and media to explain your topic. The map should include some layering of data related to the topic chosen that help illustrate relationships between the data and the place chosen. Additional guidelines include:
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- Identify your chosen topic, guiding question, and location.
- Highlight key places on the map related to your chosen topic.
- Visualize one or more data sets related to your chosen topic by either creating your own map and adding the data sets to them, or choosing existing maps with data sets already incorporated. Don’t forget to identify the source of your data and/or maps.
- Incorporate select media, such as photos, illustrations, or videos, that allow your map viewers to interact with, and gain deeper understanding of, your chosen topic.
- Provide a short written analysis of the data that is displayed.
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- Choose a mapping tool. Mapping tools can be as simple as a pencil and piece of paper, or as sophisticated as an online application like ArcGIS. At Middlebury, faculty and students have free access to a variety of digital tools that can be used for mapping, including:
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- ArcGIS Online: This is a sophisticated online mapping tool that can be used to create and analyze complex maps with multiple data layers. While creating maps using ArcGIS Online has a bit of a learning curve, there are many online tutorials created by ESRI (the tool developer) that facilitate technical learning. ArcGIS Online also offers a wide array of already-created maps with data layers for students to explore and analyze, as well as incorporate into their own mapping projects.
- ArcGIS StoryMaps: This is an easy-to-use online tool students can use to create and share basic interactive maps as well as digital stories incorporating maps and other media (images, audio, video, text). ESRI (the tool developer) offers many online tutorials that facilitate technical learning, as well as highlight examples of StoryMaps created by others.
- ArcGIS Survey123: This is an easy-to-use survey creation tool (form tool) that integrates well with ArcGIS mapping tools if you’re interested in collecting your own data to use on maps.
- Google Maps: Allows you to create and share basic interactive maps. Must be logged into your Middlebury Google account to be able to create and share your own map creations. Not nearly as sophisticated as the ArcGIS tools, and will not be accessible for students living in locations that block access to Google apps (e.g., China).
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- Give feedback/assess. Depending on your learning goals, there are different approaches you can take to assessing mapping projects. Rubrics are helpful to illustrate expectations about what all should be included in the mapping project, as well as what items of the map will be assessed. You may want to also incorporate peer feedback as part of the learning process, if the project timeline allows enough time for students to be able to incorporate any peer feedback into their final submission. Items that both you and any peer reviewers might assess / provide feedback on include:
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- Map construction (are key locations highlighted? Are data layers clear, readable, and understandable? If symbols are used, are they clearly defined in a legend or elsewhere?)
- General design (well organized, easy to read, interactive elements work as expected, facilitates understanding of the topic)
- Data (Is the data source identified? Is the data source reliable? Are the data clearly presented? Does the presentation of the data introduce any bias through the way it is visually represented?)
- Text explanation, if required, is present and meets expectations outlined in the project guidelines
- Added visuals or media, if required, are present, sources are identified, and visual/media are clearly connected to the topic at hand and facilitate understanding of that topic
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EXAMPLE
History/American Studies
Vermont Life’s Vermont: A Collaborative Web Project
Prof. Kathryn Morse
Course Description: Students in this course work collaboratively to build an online history project aimed at a wide audience. The goal is to construct a website that examines the evolution of historical images and the meaning of the state over time, paying particular attention to consumerism, the environment, tourism, urban-rural contrasts, local food movements, and ways that race, class, and gender influence all of these.
StoryMap Assignment: Tell a story about change over time in the Burlington Lakeside neighborhood. It should have 5 or 6 entries, each one of which makes a particular observation that moves forward your narrative of change in the Lakeside neighborhood. As an alternative, you could focus on one map and highlight what that map reveals about the neighborhood at a particular moment in time. Students are given several maps ranging from 1890-1942 and some census forms from the early twentieth century. They are not expected to cover the entire 52-year period of the maps. Students are free to find and use other documents.
Additional Resources
- Recording of a DLINQ presentation on Mapping Across Disciplines: view in Panopto.
- Additional resources, including overviews of a few sample lessons shared by Middlebury faculty, are included in the DLINQ presentation slide deck, along with links to the various mapping tools highlighted in the presentation.
Concept Mapping
Concept maps are visualizations of knowledge that illustrate relationships between topics. They typically begin with a main idea, and then branch out to show how that main idea can be broken down into specific topics. Concept maps can help students develop abstract thinking skills, organize knowledge, make connections between topics, and communicate their understanding of a topic. Concept mapping can be done as an individual, small-group, or whole-class activity.
“At its core, [a concept map] is made of concepts that are connected together by lines (or arrows) that are labelled with the relationship between the concepts. The concepts are usually found in circles or boxes. Concept maps are a cross disciplinary active learning technique that help students manage concepts into sub-concepts, synthesize information, see a larger picture and develop higher-order thinking skills and strategies (Lee et al, 2013). Concept maps can summarize a part of a book, connect historical events, describe how a business is run, develop a personal care plan or patient treatment, describe how the body works, or the interconnectedness of a wetland’s ecology.” Tomaswick, L. and Marcinkiewicz, J. (2018). Active Learning – Concept Maps. Kent State University Center for Teaching and Learning.
Prep Ahead
Select a concept or theme with which to start. This could be any concept that can be visually presented by illustrating relationships between the concept of focus and associated topics.
Ingredients
- Learning goal(s)
- Prompts/expectations for students
- A concept mapping tool
- Assessment and/or feedback strategy
Step by Step Instructions
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- Identify your learning goal(s). Some examples:
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- Identify and visualize relationships between concepts
- Explore the meaning and reach of a given concept
- Communicate meaning through data visualization
- Synthesize and integrate information and ideas
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- Create a prompt/instructions for the activity. Select a concept or theme with which to start. This could be any concept that can be visually presented by illustrating relationships between the concept of focus and associated topics. Sample prompt: Create a map that visualizes the concept of “ecology.” Your map should help illustrate relationships between the main concept and its associated topics. It’s ok to include short phrases in your concept map. Provide a brief written analysis (no more than one paragraph) to accompany your concept map that explains your thought process as you created the map, and that highlights key relationships illustrated by the map. What did you learn by creating this map?“Be sure students understand the expectations (purpose, variables, how to use linking phrases to show relationships between variables, direction of arrows, number of connections). Share an example of what the map might look like (something they are familiar with) and discuss what else might be added to them.” (source)
- Choose a concept mapping tool. Concept mapping tools can be as simple as a pencil and piece of paper (which students can then photograph to share online), or there are many online tools available. Here are three no-cost online options:
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- Give feedback/assess. Depending on your learning goals, there are different approaches you can take to assessing concept mapping projects. We recommend using concept maps as low- or no-stakes options for facilitating critical thinking and understanding around key course concepts. Rubrics are helpful to illustrate expectations about what all students should include in their maps, as well as what aspects of the map will be assessed. You may want to also incorporate peer feedback as part of the learning process, particularly if the project timeline allows enough time for students to be able to incorporate any peer feedback into their final submission. Items that both you and any peer reviewers might assess / provide feedback on include:
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- General design (well organized, easy to follow, facilitates understanding of the concept, illustrates relationships between topics)
- Text summary, if required, is present and meets expectations outlined in the project guidelines
- Added visuals or media, if required, are present, sources are identified, and visual/media are clearly connected to the topic at hand and facilitate understanding of that topic
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EXAMPLE
As illustrated by the example below, instructors can have students revisit a concept map several times over the course of a semester, and ask them to make revisions to the map based on new understandings or connections they may have formed.
Formative Assessment Using Concept Mapping: A Geoscience Application
At the beginning of an Introductory Meteorology unit on Moisture in the Atmosphere, the instructor passes out copies of a concept map (Acrobat PDF 450kB May 2 05) to students. The major concepts are identified, but detail is missing. As the unit progresses the instructor asks students to add to the original concept map. For example, the students could add:
- the types of reservoirs that occur on land
- different types of precipitation
- additional mechanisms such as transpiration
As the unit progresses, students continue to see the major concepts repeatedly, and the instructor can track student understandings of the relationships of parts to the whole (or misconceptions) as they arise by collecting and reviewing the concept maps.
Additional Resources
- Concept Mapping in the Classroom, by Kathy Schrock (includes an extensive list of concept mapping tools, as well as samples of different types of concept maps)
- Tomaswick, L. and Marcinkiewicz, J. (2018). Active Learning – Concept Maps. Kent State University Center for Teaching and Learning.
- Tools for Formative Assessment: Concept Mapping (University of North Texas Health Sciences Center)
- Chan C. (2009). Concept Map Assessment. University of Hong Kong.
- The Ultimate Guide to Concept Maps: From Its Origin to Concept Map Best Practices, from Amanda Athuraliya on Creately
