Fourth Graders Map the Imagination

Skull Island, Candy Island, Penguin Wildlife Park. These are some of the imaginary lands that the fourth graders created and meticulously mapped. Students started by building an island out of clay, and then they flooded the island one centimeter at a time. With each addition of water, they traced the outline of the remaining land from above until they had a topographic image of the island. They traced the image on to paper, creating a beautiful map with multiple layers of information. Each map contained a title, legend, compass rose, scale, contour-line interval, and latitude/longitude grid. The students can use all the features to discuss the many aspects of their islands. Maps are on display in the fourth-grade classrooms.