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Description

Create a simple map to help someone navigate your meeting place.

Courtesy of The Scout Association
https://www.scouts.org.uk/activities/put-it-on-the-map/

Resources

Pens or pencils
A4 paper

Instructions

1. Give everyone paper and some pens.

2. Everyone should draw a big outline that’s the same shape as the floor of their meeting place. It might be helpful to go outside or use Google maps satellite view, for a better look. If your meeting place has more than one floor, it’s up to you whether everyone draws just one floor or all of the floors, or if different people draw different floors.

3. Everyone should walk around the space, thinking about the most important things to include on their maps. It might be best to start with walls, adding in any that divide the main room from corridors, side rooms, or store rooms.

4. Once their walls are in place, everyone should think about adding windows and doors to their map.

5. Everyone should decide what their map is for – what job will it do? Some people’s maps might help someone to find the toilet, others will help people to find the fire exit from the main room, and others might help someone to find where the footballs are kept, for example.

6. Once they’ve created their rooms, and chosen a purpose, everyone should think about labelling their map. Do they need to use symbols or words to show where the toilet is, for example? Other important things to include might be stairs and fire exits.

7. Now, everyone can add detail. What other important things, such as pieces of furniture, would be useful to have on the map? What do people need to know?

8. Once everyone’s finished, everyone should compare their maps. What’s similar, and what’s different?

9. Everyone should give their map to someone else, and tell them what the map will help them to do. If possible, the people following the maps shouldn’t be too familiar with the meeting place. For example, you could ask the people who pick everyone up to come a few minutes early to give it a go.

10. Everyone who’s been given a map should follow it and complete the task. Does the map help them do the job?


Reflection
This activity was a chance for you to develop skills. Why is it useful to have maps? What skills do you need to draw a map? Which things are useful to have on a map? Do all maps need the same information, or does it depend on the job they do? Do you think it’s easier to read maps if you understand how to draw them? Was it easy to show what you could see in a way someone else could understand?

This activity also helped you to communicate. Talking isn’t the only way to communicate – how did you communicate through your map? How did you decide what information to include, and what to leave out? Was it easy to imagine being the person reading the map? Did the person who followed you map understand it? Did they do the job? Did they need any help, or did they need to ask any questions? If they did, was it easy to help and answer their questions?


Change the level of challenge
- You could do this activity in pairs or groups.
- People could try to draw things to scale. For example, if the kitchen is twice the size of the toilet in real life, it should be twice the size of the toilet on the map too.
- See if a map designed to do one job can also help people do another job. For example, can a map designed to help someone find the toilet also help someone find the fire escape?

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Badge Links

• Navigator - Draw map