Map Making!
Taught by Jordan Hermitt
This adaptable, dynamic, and hands-on map-making exercise engages students in creating and analyzing maps while exploring different educational themes. Students tudents explore the fundamentals of map-making while learning how human culture shapes the environment. By utilizing the game The Quiet Year and combining artistic expression with spatial reasoning, students gain a deeper appreciation for the connections between geography and human activity, and they learn how maps can tell stories about the people who inhabit a place.
Culture & Cartography
They will engage in a hands-on, gamified exercise to create maps that represent communities, landmarks, and cultural features. Through this process, students analyze how geological events, social structures, and the acts of individuals can influence landscapes.
Empires
In this iteration, students examine how empires organize and manage vast territories. Using map-making as a tool, they explore the flow of resources, trade networks, military control, and administrative divisions. The exercise allows students to visualize how empires maintain power, integrate diverse regions, and respond to geographic challenges. By gamifying the process, students actively engage with concepts like governance, infrastructure, and cultural integration, gaining a deeper understanding of how empires function and how geography shapes political and economic strategies
Feudalism
This version of the exercise focuses on medieval society and the hierarchical structure of feudalism. Students create maps that depict land ownership, vassal-lord relationships, and the distribution of political power across a territory. Through hands-on activities, they explore how geography influenced social and economic organization, including farming, trade routes, and defense. The exercise encourages students to think critically about the interplay between land, power, and social responsibility, providing a visual and interactive way to understand the complexities of feudal societies.