A Plethora of Great Ideas

My freshmen Earth Science students struggle to understand how to read topographic maps. This resource provides multiple hands-on activities that will help my students visualize how topograp... See More

My freshmen Earth Science students struggle to understand how to read topographic maps. This resource provides multiple hands-on activities that will help my students visualize how topographic maps are made, how they are used in city planning, and how to read them. I can't wait to incorporate these into my curriculum next term.

Hands on mapping

Understanding how topographic maps represent landforms and physical features can be confusing for a lot of students, especially in a time of GIS and so many other automated tools. This a... See More

Understanding how topographic maps represent landforms and physical features can be confusing for a lot of students, especially in a time of GIS and so many other automated tools. This article contains a good activity describing how to turn a 2-D topographic map into a 3D model of the landscape. This visual hands-on activity allows students to see the contour lines in 3 dimensions, leading to enhanced understanding. I would encourage you to adapt the activity given to a local landform to make the representation to life. Consider adding paint and trees to make the model more life-like.