Not Another State Report, Again!

Using Old Technology with a New Twist for Project-Based Learning.

By Tracy Sturgell

Santa Maria-Bonita School District

 

Title: Mapping Your State's Points of Interest

Standards Addressed:

 

Materials and Technology Needed:

  • Kid Pix or another Paint program
  • Microsoft Excel
  • Digital Camera
  • Atlas
  • maps101.com or any of the web sites listed on the resource page

Activities:

  • Students must create a map of their state using a painting tool. They should include all major cities as well as points of interest. They should not label the points of interest at this time, instead use a symbol to represent them.
  • If creating the image is too challenging for some students, they could take a quality digital image of a map, using the digital camera.
  • Students then insert the image as a background into Excel and use Excel to diagram their map with comments about the points of interest and activities they did on their "vacation" (lesson one).

Assessment:

  • This diagram is saved into their electronic portfolio for use during their final presentation.