Respect for all: Mapping our area's global links

This activity was used with chlidren in key stage 2, year 5.

Aim

• To promote knowledge and understanding of Britain's social and cultural heritage, and of its interdependence with the wider world.

Activity objectives

• To promote understanding of how the local area links with a variety of places around the world, both in the present and in the past.
• To develop map-making skills by producing a map of the local area for a specific purpose and audience.
• To develop the concept of global interdependence and integrate this into work on the local area.

This activity promotes multicultural understanding and relates to the following elements in the geography key stage 2 programme of study:

• communicating findings to a wider audience (1e);
• interdependence (3g);
• similarities and difference in places (3a-g) and pupils' localities (6a);
• map-making and map interpretation skills (2c, 2e).

Activity description

The class had been considering audience and purpose in writing, and wanted to extend this into their map-making. The idea of producing a map came from the Global Reading materials produced by the Reading International Solidarity Centre.

First, the children considered a picture of an aspect of their local area and were encouraged to ask questions about how the area was linked to other places, such as:

Where does this road lead to?
Where did the stone for this building come from?
How did the person who built this house make their money?
Why is this street named after a place in Africa?

The children then went on a number of fieldtrips into the local area, collecting information about the area in a variety of forms, for example a packet of biscuits, sketches and digital photographs (eg statue of Victorian dignitary). They noted this information on outline maps of the area and also produced a world map display, highlighting all the places to which their area was linked. The children worked in small groups to research the answers to their questions about each aspect of the local area and to build up their local-global map, adding appropriate symbols and a key.

The children then developed a guided walk for people to follow, with activities at each stage to introduce the variety of ways in which the area was linked to the rest of the world.

Commentary

The children's interest was engaged by revisiting places they knew but with a very specific purpose. This enabled some children to make links with countries that are part of their heritage, others to make links with history topics, and others with places where they had been on holiday. The fact that the children knew that there was a purpose (to produce a guide for others) enabled many to engage more fully with the activity. The production of a finished guide and map made the global links within the local area explicit.

Resources

Global Reading, Reading International Solidarity Centre, 2001. This is an annotated map resource that makes interactive links between the town of Reading and the rest of the world. Information is available online from RISC at: www.risc.org.uk/introgame.htm

The geography schemes of work can be found at www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/schemes
The online national curriculum can be found at www.nc.uk.net