Overview:

This legends activity introduces students to the concept of symbols, legends, and how to use them on maps.  Ultimately, they will have the opportunity to create their own symbols to represent various locations and land use on the school grounds.

Objectives:

1. To encourage students to think about and look for symbols that are common in their life experience.
2. To evaluate the effectiveness of symbols by comparing and contrasting symbols on a variety of maps.
3. To demonstrate understanding of symbols in legends by creating a map of the school grounds including a legend.

Grade Level: 6-8

Time: Three 50-min. class periods

Subjects: Geography

Required Materials

1. three different atlases for each pair of students
2.   “Using and Understanding Legends on Maps” activity hand-out
3. map of the school
4. colored pencils

Optional Technologies:

Suggested Procedure (Pedagogy):

Opening-

Explain that we are continuing our study of maps by studying the element of legends.  Ask students, “What comes to mind when you think of symbols?  What else?”  Next, have students take out a sheet of paper and ask them to draw as many symbols as they can think of in one minute.  When a minute is up, give a piece of chalk to one person at each table (or the first person in each row depending on your classroom seating arrangement).  Ask the people with the chalk to go up to the board and draw one of the symbols they thought of and drew a moment ago (trying not to duplicate symbols).  When they finish, have them hand off the chalk to another person in their group until everyone in the class has a turn to draw on the board.  The result will be a beautiful collage of symbols in a matter of a few minutes.  (See resource bar for follow-up questions).

Development-

1. To compare different legends and analyze the uses of symbols throughout a variety of sources, review the instructions of the “Using and Understanding Legends” activity.  Put students in pairs and distribute three different atlases to each pair.  (For our purposes, the following sources were used:  Nystrom, Desk Atlas, 2000, Rand McNally, Goode’s World Atlas, 2000, Baerwald & Fraser, World Geography (textbook). See “Using and Understanding Legends” activity attached).
2. Once students complete the Legends activity, tell them that it is now time to actively involve them in creating their own legends.  To make this assignment personally relevant to our own lives, we will be creating legends for a familiar landscape…our school grounds (may need to adjust for bad weather).  Give each student two copies of a school map with space to draw on the outside.  One copy should be taken with on our hike around the school yard, the other will be used for the final copy.  Take students on a walk around the school building and ask them to write down descriptive words about what they see in the correct location on the map (note:  scale will not be accurate on this map, but encourage students to try their best).  For some students, it may be helpful to draw pictures of what they see.

Closing-

When the hike is finished, ask students to help generate a class list about what they saw.  Then, pick one or two landmarks and ask students to create a symbol for that landmark.  For example, if there is a park on your school grounds, ask students to draw a symbol to represent the park.  On a transparency of the school map, have a student come up to draw their symbol of the park.  Ask students if their symbol looks the same (some of them will probably look different).  Then, ask students to draw a symbol of the open grass.  Encourage students to reflect on how color can also be used as a symbol.  For example, instead of drawing one hundred pieces of grass on the map, discuss how a shade of green may be a simple and effective way of representing grass on a map.  Their final draft will be completed on the second school map.  

Differentiation:

1. For some students, it may be helpful to provide specific examples of landforms you would like them to observe (i.e. provide a list of 10 locations or landforms).
2. Class discussion includes a variety of levels of thinking skills.

Student Activity-Online:

Suggested Assessment:

1. Accurate completion of the “Using and Understanding Legends” activity.
2. Participation in class discussion regarding the importance of symbols in legends on maps.
3. Self, peer and teacher assessment of the “school grounds” map and legend.

RESOURCE BAR

Standards:

Web Links for Teachers and Students:

Discussion Questions:

1. What comes to mind or what do you notice about the symbols we have drawn on the board?  What else?
2. Are many of the symbols familiar to you?  Why?  (Many may also be universal). 
3. How might familiar symbols be important to know and useful to cartographers when creating effective maps?

Extension Activities:

1.  Examine maps that have been produced in different countries and in various languages from all over the globe.  What do you notice about the legends?  Are the symbols the same on these maps?  Different?  Other observations?

Credits

Kirsten Amundson, Central Middle School, Eden Prairie, MN 55410