I realize it's been quite a bit of time since I've posted on here and I have to apologize for that. Upon reflection, I realized that I had trouble thinking of what to post that would be interesting, engaging, and informative for those of you reading when my life here has become, while not routine, normalized, and experiences that would have once prompted a post are now accepted as everyday occurrences. Going forward, I will try to post more regularly but I make no promises.
Then came the fun part, drawing a grid of 3 in x 3 in boxes. Again, this took longer than anticipated and I had to start over several times. The wall I chose was not level, the right corner was higher than the left, and the surface was not flat, making it incredibly difficult to draw straight lines without a level or tape measure. I got a lot of help from the school's librarian and our social studies teacher and finally managed to complete it. A few of the boxes weren't exactly 3 in x 3 in, either a little too large or a little too small, but fortunately none of them were off enough to completely throw off the map.
After the frustrations of drawing the grid, the rest of the map was relatively easy. I readily admit that I am not a talented artist and even with the assistance of the grid and the handbook pages I had a bit of a tough time with some of the countries, especially the United States and Canada. I accidentally stole some land from Canada. Hey, as both my brother and dad said when I told them, 54 40 or fight! Also in my defense, the US was the first country I drew and didn't realize how out of proportion it was until the rest of the map was drawn and by then it was too late to fix. My favorite part of this step was how involved the students got with the project. The older students, 6th-8th grade, would help draw during their break and after school and took their assignments very seriously. The entire continent of Africa was draw by two very talented 7th and 8th graders and I was blown away by their accuracy and dedication. It was really humbling to see how involved the students were as well as how excited they were by the project.
The teachers and staff got their chance to shine when we started painting the map. Though students did help with the painting a little bit, mostly on the ocean and the larger countries, the teachers really took the project over at this point. There were times when I would come over to the map during my free periods to work on it and find so many teachers and staff members using their own free periods to help that I would have nothing to do. That was truly amazing. I didn't even have anything to do with the map for the last two weeks of the project as the teachers completely took over labeling the countries.
To see the community involvement was incredible especially with the struggles I had trying to get this project off the ground last year. Everyone at the school took the project seriously and are very happy that it's completed, and I would like to think they are proud of themselves as well for the work that they did. Every time I see the map I get a little giddy that it's finally completed. I hope that this map will not only enrich the students' social studies classes but may inspire them to learn more about other countries and the world around them.
One of the things that I have been working on the past few months is the World Map Project. This project was designed by a Peace Corps Volunteer serving in South America several years ago and is done throughout the world. I have wanted to do this project since before I even arrived in Micronesia and tried to start it last year but unfortunately wasn't able to start it until this fall. Since this project is a recognized Peace Corps project there is a handbook that gives advice, step by step instructions, and even teaching materials for math and social studies classes.
The first step of the project was picking a large, blank white wall that would fit a 7 1/2 ft by 12 1/2 ft map. Fortunately, the back wall of the social studies classroom was large enough and sheltered from the elements. Once I picked the wall, I had to find the middle to make sure the map was centered. This took longer than it should have (especially as the daughter of a carpenter) for several reasons; mainly I had no measuring tape and had to use a meter stick, which I thought was a yardstick and didn't realize my mistake until I had finished and then had to start all over again. Once I found the center I used a plumb line to draw the center line of the map and then drew the equator.
The boring blank wall.
The completed grid.
8th graders working on the map.
Working on the map.
The picture isn't super clear but this the completed drawn world.
Teachers, staff, and students painting with many curious students looking on.
The completed map.
