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Map Your World: Reading and Making Maps for Kids

  • Charlotte C. Browne Woods (map)

This workshop has been postponed. Keep your eye out in the next warmer season.

For centuries humans have used maps for a diversity of reasons, including to help each other find our way around, but kids growing up in the digital age may be less likely to have seen or learned to read a paper map.

On Saturday, September 23 from 9:15-11AM, join Chocorua Lake Conservancy for Map Your World with naturalist and outdoor educator Hillary Behr, an outdoor program on reading and making maps for 6- to 12-year-old kids and their caregivers.

If you can read a map, you can learn and understand more about the world around you! Even with the technology we have on our phones, reading maps still gives you a better idea of where you are in the world and how to find interesting places. And maps can tell you a lot more than location. Have you ever seen a map that tells you what the weather is in different places? Or which plants are growing where? Or which places are noisy and which places are quiet? You can make a map of almost anything.

Join us on September 23 to learn how to read a map, how to follow a map to find interesting things, and how to make your own maps. You’ll also learn to recognize landmarks in the woods, orient yourself to the four directions, and other techniques for “staying found.” 

This event is free/by donation. Space is limited—please register in advance below. Rain date is Sunday, September 24, 9:15-11AM.

Please dress appropriately for the weather, wear footwear suitable for walking in fields and woods, consider sun and insect protection as appropriate, and bring water and a snack. You might want to bring a picnic for after, as well.

Photo courtesy of Hillary Behr.

Hillary Behr grew up exploring the woods and waters of Tamworth and still calls it home. She earned a degree in Environmental Conservation and spent 8 years in rural California, working in land conservation and outdoor science education. Hillary has a Masters of Education and has worked as a teacher in many different settings, both outdoors and in the classroom, most recently teaching high school Environmental Science.


Banner image: A complicated map full of details and using LiDAR and bathymetry imaging, created by Rick Allmendinger.