Education Resources - Mapping & Sense of Place

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I have lately been surveying the Walden woods so extensively and minutely that I now see it mapped in my mind's eye - as, indeed, on paper - as so many men's wood-lots, and am aware when I walk there that I am at a given moment passing from such a one's wood-lot to such another's... What a history this Concord wilderness which I affect so much may have had! How many old deeds describe it.

Henry David Thoreau, Journal January 1, 1858

Mapping & Sense of Place

Using Maps to learn about a home-place

Reflective journaling questions

Activities

Resources

Using maps as an educational tool for an entry into learning about one's home-place or as a community building activity.

Ask your students to:

Set aside 30 minutes. Get a large map of the neighborhood/town/city where your students live. For the first 10 minutes, ask your students to find their favorite place on the map and to journal about it. Then, ask them to journal for 10 minutes about unfamiliar places they see on the map of their town. Next, have a discussion where students share stories about their favorite places. (Can use flags to mark these places on the map. Explore the ideas of home-place, sense of place, etc.)
Highlight rivers on maps, analyze the neighborhoods through which the water is flowing.
Find information about local watersheds by contacting local land trusts, watershed associations, Audubon sanctuaries, etc.
Look at the map and think of all of the different information that the map conveys (this works especially well when comparing maps).
Draw a place where you live.
Draw a map of your journey as you are going/driving to buy milk.
Draw your favorite place (make things of higher importance to you larger, and things of smaller importance to you – smaller or non-existent).
After mapping exercises, write about a place where you live. How did mapping activities influence your writing?

Reflective journaling questions:

Consider these 2 quotes by Thoreau from Walden:

"The scenery of Walden is on the humble scale, and, though very beautiful, does not approach to grandeur, nor can it much concern one who has not long frequented it or lived by its shore; yet this pond is so remarkable for its depth and purity as to merit a particular description."

“When I was four years old, as I well remember, I was brought from Boston to this my native town, through these very woods and this field, to the pond. It is one of the oldest scenes stamped on my memory. And now, to-night my flute has waked the echoes over that very water. The pines still stand here older than I; or, if some have fallen, I have cooked my supper with their stumps, and a new growth is rising all around, preparing another aspect for new infant eyes. Almost the same johnswort springs from the same perennial root in this pasture, and even I have at length helped to clothe that fabulous landscape of my infant dreams, and one of the results of my presence and influence is seen in these bean leaves, corn blades, and potato vines."

Questions about sense of place:

What are the qualities that Thoreau depicts about his relationship to Walden Pond and Walden Woods in this selection?
What are the words that he uses?
What is the atmosphere that he evokes?
What are the actions implied?
Where does he fit in to his surroundings?
What do you think Thoreau wants the reader to feel? To think?
Do you have a sense of place? What is your Place or Places?
Why is it important to have a sense of place?

Questions about mapping:

How can we use maps to connect people?
What information is missing from maps?
What are the kinds of things we would like for our community?
Who in the community would have an interest in these issues? Why?
How does the past influence and create the present conditions?
How might we take Thoreau’s ideas and implement them at home?
How do we turn proscriptions into positive actions?

(click here for more information about reflective journaling)

Activities:

“Event Map” (a pdf file) helps students to record and remember their experiences and feelings on a particular day outside.
More ideas for mapping exercises by Mitchell Thomashow (a pdf file), including The Sense of Place Map, Community Network Map, Childhood Place Map, and Where Do Your People Come From? Map.