This needlpoint of the United States and their mottos by Emily Wick is great fun. I was having a good time deciphering the phrases when the thought struck me that this could be adapted for a graphics project for my Multimedia students. They would get to practice several skills:
- Looking up information
- Inserting a graphic into a specific shape (they'd get to practice this bit 50 times)
- Making it pleasing to the eye (design)
Then I got to thinking (once I start it's hard to get this old rusty train of a mind to stop) that you could do a variety of things using a map of the states to represent concepts graphically. An activity could be designed to show the kids how to present information in a graphical way. I came up with several ideas.
- Census information (population/density/age/ethnicity/etc)
- Date each state became a part of the union
- Picture of a famous person from that state inserted into that state
- State Flower (oooooooo pretty!)
I also thought of creating two maps that show two different aspects and then let the kids pull out correlations like:
- wealth and murder rate
- population and environmental rating (how green)
- wealth and money spent on each student
I don't know what the correlation is but it would be interesting to find out. I might even let the students brainstorm their own correlations to test. I used to do this with blank maps and colored pencils back in olden times. Maybe it's time to update it?
What else could the kids represent graphically on a map of the states?
[Note: Strange Maps also had a post on this map and included a list of all the mottos and a history of their origin.]
[via Neatorama]
[Image captured from Two Eyeballs: http://www.twoeyeballs.com/]
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