Map Reading – A Life Skill

We all are well aware of what a map is. It is pictorial representation of the earth’s surface on a plane surface. There are different types of maps;political maps, physical maps, weather maps, demographic maps, historical maps, economic maps, resource distribution maps, navigational maps. The type of map depends on the features that it shows.

What Is Scale?

The features are shown on a scale which is usually mentioned in one corner of the map. A scale is the ratio of distance on the map to the actual distance on earth. The map also has a small key or legend in a corner. It is a small table that tells us how to interpret the symbols and the colors that have been used in a map.

Skill Benefits

Maps are not only important academically, social studies specifically, but in our day to day life, they also have significan meaning. Map Reading is a life skill. At some time or the other in our life, we all have felt the need to resort to a map. Each one of us needs to know how to read and interpret maps. Map reading is easy for people with visual spatial intelligence, but may not come naturally to all of us, especially for some students with disabilities. Map reading needs to be learned and practiced in the classroom.

To begin with it is necessary to explain the basics of map reading:

• How are the directions placed?
• What is a scale?
• What is a legend?
• What do certain symbols mean?
• What do certain colors mean?
• How to calculate the distance?

Additional help to explain and answer the above questions is available at: http://www.brainpopjr.com/socialstudies/geography/readingmaps

Classroom activities can help to enhance or even initiate some amount of map reading skills. Certain activities that can be undertaken are:

• Mapping the route from school to back home or between two prominent places in the city. Students can be asked to show prominent features on their way, e.g., a hospital, a toy shop, a bank etc;
• Reading and interpreting maps. They could be given a map and asked to trace the way between two places. They could be asked to list out the features that they would come across;
• Preparing a map of the classroom, their school wing and later the whole school;
• Treasure hunts could be organized in which the students are required to use maps to get to the clues and the treasure in the end;
• The students can be asked to trace alternate routes between two places;
• Mapping the route for an excursion or trip.

Understanding how to read maps can be and should be developed at an early age among children. These skills can become especially important for people with special needs. The aim of a compassionate society is to make such people self sufficient as much as possible. It becomes all the more important to give some basic map reading skills to students with disabilities.