Map Reading

Grade Levels: 3 - 5

Overview

Students use a Web resource to trace routes on major U.S. highways and to play a neighborhood street map game.

Objectives

• Students will interpret written directions and trace routes on a map.
  
  

Materials

• Neighborhood Map printout, one copy for each student (optional).

Procedures

1. Tell students they are going to use the Worldwide Web to plan some trips. Consult a map of the United States and choose 4 pairs of cities to travel between. Then go online to the MapQuest web site.
   
   Enter the first city and state you will travel from and the city and state you will travel to. Then click on "Get Directions". Print out the travel instructions, which will be in this format:
   Go Southwest on I-85 for 84.3 miles to I-285
   Go Southwest on I-285 for 29.4 miles to I-85
   Go Southwest on I-85 for 67.2 miles to Alabama
   Go West on I-85 for 78.9 miles
   Repeat the process for the other 3 pairs of cities.

2. Back in the classroom, let students take turns working in pairs, with one student reading the directions aloud and the other student tracing the route in the atlas.

3. Visit the MapQuest web site again and, this time, click on the "Driving Directions." Let each student, or as many as feasible, enter their address – street name and number, city, and state – to get a map of their neighborhood.
   

4. Use the controls on the right to zoom in until most street names are readable. Then print out the map. (Notice that you can use the "Customize Map Options" button to change the map to black and white. You can also have it come up in a larger size.)

5. In the classroom, have each student use the map this way. (If there are not enough maps, distribute copies of the Neighborhood Map printout for students to use.)

   • Choose one location on the map that is the goal and another location, many streets away, that is the starting point.
     
     

   • Write directions to get from the starting point to the goal. Use the format that Driving Directions used. Thus, each line will read:
     Go north on __A___ street to ___B___ street.
     Go west on ___B___street to ___C___ street.
     . . .and so on until the goal is reached.
     
     However, students shouldn't mention in their directions what the goal is. They should end with "You are there!"

   • Have students exchange maps with a partner and, using the directions, trace the route with a marker. They should then write where they have ended up (corner of ________ Street and ________ Street). Then they check with their partner to see if that was the goal. If it was not, they analyze together to discover where the directions or the following of directions went wrong.

Extension

Students might use the Driving Directions feature to find a route between two places in town they travel to often. They can check the MapQuest route against their own and decide which is the most efficient route and why.