Student Views of the Expedition
A multimedia feature produced by students of Windsor 6. Check back soon for new installments.

Windsor 6 Wraps up Mapping Change Article by Molly and Kate. Media by Jake, Nick, Michela, Megan, Tate,
Rikki, Jessica, Joshua, and Zak

The students of Windsor 6 have recently wrapped up their first expedition, Mapping Change. Students explored how maps can accelerate, limit or just show change. To do this, we worked in each of our classes to find out how and why maps are used, and how maps get made. We concluded by making maps of our own, called Personal Maps.

Our expedition started with a kick-off called the “Amazing Race”. We were divided into teams and followed clues and solved challenges to reach the end of race. We learned about the layout of King and some pretty cool facts from the questions and answers.

After the kick-off we started to do a lot of class work and homework. Measuring and the order of operations were our focuses in math. Eventually, we measured King and the order of operations became second nature. We studied mapping in Social Studies while also learning about the many different types of maps, the parts of maps, and eventually making our own personal maps. In Language Arts, we talked about Mrs. McDonald’s summer trip to the Czech Republic, learned about World Heritage Sites, learned the three types of note taking, and learned about types of speech. We are the first sixth graders to have access to iBooks. In iBook class, we made slideshows about countries with World Heritage Sites in them.

In science we studied forest succession. We ran a simulation of succession on our computers and had to answer questions to prepare for fieldwork in Baxter Woods. There, we mapped Baxter Woods thoroughly, mapping succession. Our second fieldwork was in Evergreen Acres. We were joined by people form the Audoban Society, the arborist for Portland (Jeff Tarling), and assistants from Parks and Recreation. With their help, we distinguished the different types of ground cover and measured the circumference of trees. We had two different areas that we had to cover, making sketches, taking photos, measuring, and sorting different ground cover. It’s safe to say that we had fun.

Another fieldwork expedition that we did was the Osher Map Library (an exhibit at USM). We learned a lot about how Portland has changed over many years.

Then we began the final step in our expedition, personal maps. These were maps we made of a places that were important to us, such as neighbourhoods or states. We had to use our new-found mapping skills and map vocabulary in the creation of these maps. First we had to decide where we were going to map, then we had to choose at least fifteen specific spots to label. Rough drafts were made and perfected, then we started our final map product. The first step in making final maps was to do a map wash (a light watercolor on the map) then we traced our rough draft onto our final map. We decorated, glued everything on, colored, and finally, we had a magnificent final product.