Author: Tammy Lane • First Posted: Tuesday, September 23, 2008

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Third-graders at Lansdowne Elementary explore the huge map of North America, which was on loan from National Geographic.

Students at Lansdowne Elementary have walked all across North America without ever leaving the school gym. Whether looking for the Caribbean Sea or tracing the outline of Iceland, the kids happily spent the past week scouring a colorful 26-by-35-foot map that covered nearly half the basketball court.

“They’re actually locating mountain ranges, water bodies – learning what an island is, a peninsula,” explained P.E. teacher Lisa Carr, who noted the map is too big for classroom use. 

The traveling map, which feels like a giant vinyl shower curtain, is on loan from the National Geographic Society. Lansdowne and Tates Creek elementaries are sharing it for three weeks, until Oct. 3.  

“The map comes with lesson plans,” Carr said. “It’s really well laid-out.”

One activity calls for students to walk the lines of longitude and latitude; another has kids toss bean bags onto countries where various foods are produced. Students also can search out map details through interactive games such as “Simon says, ‘Put your knee in Canada’” or “Put your toe in the Mississippi River.”

Carr used different activities based on age. Third-graders, for instance, have “surfed” on the oceans, “sailed” in the Gulf of Mexico, extended their arms high like mountains and lain flat on their backs to represent the Great Plains.  

“They’re associating their movement with the area on the map,” she said. 

Lansdowne students had two periods of gym class to explore North America before passing the map along to Tates Creek Elementary, which plans to roll it out Monday in Daniel Hill's P.E. class.

"When you can make anything practical to students, it sure does help, especially with the little guys," Hill said.

Last Thursday at Lansdowne, Carr made the most of a half-hour session with third-graders – quizzing them on bodies of water (oceans, rivers and bays) and land formations (mountains, islands and plateaus). She covered such basics as how the color blue on a map indicates water and noted facts such as 500 million people live in all of North America. She also threw out questions like “Who can find Costa Rica?” and “Where’s the state of Washington?” as sock-footed children scampered across the slick surface.

“The more kids knew about maps, the better it would be,” said Carr, who noted that fifth-graders already have some map-reading skills.

Nonetheless, the map made an impression on even the youngest at Lansdowne. Carr heard from parents at a PTA meeting that kindergarteners had gone home talking about “North America.”

For wee students who might feel that tying their shoes is the hardest part of P.E., that’s an accomplishment.  

THE BACK STORY:

The North America map will travel to schools, museums and festivals across the country. It is the third in National Geographic’s giant traveling map series. Africa began touring in 2006, followed by Asia in 2007. The North America map will reach more than 75,000 U.S. students during the 2008-09 school year.

Designed for grades K-8, the map comes with a trunk of accessories, including interactive games, atlases and books that teach students about the physical characteristics of North America as well as its rich history and varied cultures.