Measuring the Miles on a Map

Last year, I stumbled upon a way to have my students measure the miles that Uncle Reuben traveled in his adventures in the 1920's and 30's for The Uncle Reuben Project that I thought I would share here.

We studied the map key on the large wall map that we used to mark Reuben's travels. I showed them where the key showed how long 100 miles is on that map. We talked about whether that would be the same for our small map in our notebook or the large carpet map in our classroom until I felt they understood that the map key was for that particular map only.

Then, I gave each student a 12 inch length of ribbon (the curling, gift wrap kind) and a tiny piece of paper the length of 100 miles on our map. The students marked ten 100 mile marks on their ribbons with a pen so they had 1000 miles on the ribbon.

They learned very quickly how to measure using the ribbon.

Read about their success during the first year of the project by clicking here.

Challenging and Rebuilding Mental Models - Conceptual Models

My students study the road while traveling to the YMCA for swimming lessons. 

Why?

Because they have studied the route, back in the classroom, on Google Earth and are working on their mental map models!

Sometimes we have to break something in order to fix it. When someone visits a doctor for a nose injury, there is a good possibility that their nose will need to be broken again as part of the treatment.

As teachers, we must often go through the process of breaking through the misconceptions and incorrect models that our students have built, in their minds, around an academic concept. These are called mental models. And, we all have them!

What I'm calling a mental model is the representation, or picture, seen, and sometimes "felt," in the mind, when thinking abstractly. For example, the picture you see in your mind when you think about a year divided into months. Is it a line? A circle? A calendar? 

Mental models begin to develop early on in our lives and we test and correct them from then on. By the time my students get to my room, they have all kinds of models that they are using. Many are correct, but some are flawed and can cause problems when learning new concepts. 

Shari's Nerd Corner:

You might be surprised to know that everyone has a slightly different model. What I perceive may not be what you do.

I asked a friend what her model looks like (Yes, I’m nerdy like that!). It took her a minute to understand what I meant but when I asked her to show me where we are right now, (April), she looked down at the place she would put April and pointed at the space in front of her. She described a linear representation that looked like a timeline that repeated every year. When her eyes focused on the space in front of her, I knew she was experiencing what I do. The model is more than a picture. It's an invisible object that she can move and refer to in her mind. 

I suppose my tendency to drift into my Intra-personal Intelligence (Gardner) makes me more aware of these models floating around in my head, but I can't help but notice them! I've been surprised that most people I have asked about their model of a calendar year have taken the time to look and describe it to me. 

The model of a year that I see in my mind looks something like a Ferris Wheel that I travel around during the year. I move counter-clockwise around the wheel as the year goes by. Winter is at the top and summer is at the bottom but don’t ask me for details because the actual visual is a little vague. 

When I mentioned this idea to my sisters last month, one described my model in nearly every detail, which really surprised me, and the other described a timeline model with months in a row. My son describes his as a pie chart. 

What DOES your model look like?

Uncle Reuben's Journeys Part 3 - Counting the Miles

Lucky for us, Uncle Reuben kept a journal during his traveling years. We divided his journeys into 30 parts and started mapping them out with colored yarn. We used brown for train travel, red for motorcycle, green for car and blue yarn for steamship and canoe. The questions kept coming! 

Teamwork!

Lots of discussion!

The next step was to figure out how many miles he traveled. That was a big job but my students dug in and, enthusiastically, got to work! They each made a “map measurer” using a gift ribbon and a marker. They marked 100 miles 10 times according to the legend on the map giving them 1000 mile measuring ribbons.The first group began measuring using their estimating skills. One person stood at the board and wrote the miles for each leg of the journey. Another group measured the next day and either agreed with the measurements or wrote their miles next to the first miles. A third group settled 2 measurements by measuring again. The discussion I heard as I passed these groups was wonderful! I was so happy to see evidence of their growth as learners and inquirers!

Measuring and Recording Data

Another group determined the type of transportation for each trip and coded it with a letter; c for car, ca for canoe, m for motorcycle, etc., on the board.

Transportation Team

By this time I was ready to have my board back so I decided to set up three laptops facing the board and assigned students to type the information we had compiled into Excel. Each typist had a partner to check, point and help make sure they weren't skipping data. Some traded places after awhile.

Working in Excel and adding up the miles.

When they were finished, I combined the three files into one. The class was excited when we put the data up on our Smartboard and I showed them how Excel lets us sort and filter. They used their calculators to add the miles of each mode of transportation. When we were finished, they had figured Uncle Reuben traveled about 19,200 miles between 1924 and 1934. Now they could display the miles according to transportation!

[As a side note: I was curious to find out how close they got to the actual miles with their little ribbons. I took the data file and compared it to actual miles using http://www.freemaptools.com/how-far-is-it-between.htm . I just about fainted when I finished adding them up for myself. They had gotten within 200 miles of the actual mileage! I don't think the kids actually understood how cool that was but I'm sure they recognized the look of pride on their teacher's face!]

Uncle Reuben's Journeys Part 2 - The Journeys

Reuben with his sisters

     Uncle Reuben was born near McPherson, Kansas in 1903. He loved to read and must have had an adventurous spirit because at 20 years old he began 10 years of traveling the country.  He started his journeys in 1924 when he went to Chicago to attend flight school. A year and a half (and one plane crash) later he returned to Kansas to help his brothers with the farm. Before too long, he borrowed his brother’s Indian motorcycle and took off on a thousand mile trip south to help his parents with their new farm in Alamo, Texas. His continued to travel this way, crossing the United States in all directions until 1934, when he finally settled back in Chicago for awhile.

Here is the data we had to work with for the map.

Uncle Reuben's Journeys:

McPherson, Kansas	Chicago, Illinois	Train
Chicago, Illinois	McPherson, Kansas	Train
McPherson, Kansas	Alamo, Texas	Indian Motorcycle
Alamo, Texas	McPherson, Kansas	Indian Motorcycle
McPherson, Kansas	Canada	Model T Ford Coupe
Canada	Yellowstone National Park	Train
Yellowstone National Park	Salt Lake City, Utah	Train
Salt Lake City, Utah	Phoenix, Arizona	Train
Phoenix, Arizona	San Diego, California	Train
San Diego, California	Los Angeles, California	Train
Los Angeles, California	Chicago, Illinois	Car
Chicago, Illinois	Detroit, Michigan	Bus
Detroit, Michigan	Buffalo, New York	Steamer across Lake Erie
Buffalo, New York	Portland, Maine	Train
Portland, Maine	New York City, New York	Train
New York City, New York	Chicago, Illinois	Train
Chicago, Illinois	Illinois River	Car
Illinois River	Mississippi River	Canoe
Mississippi River	New Orleans, Louisiana	Canoe
New Orleans, Louisiana		bicycle shop
New Orleans, Louisiana	Baton Rouge, Louisiana	Canoe
Baton Rouge, Louisiana	New Orleans, Louisiana	Canoe
New Orleans, Louisiana	Chicago, Illinois	Harley Motorcycle
Chicago, Illinois	Minnesota	Harley Motorcycle
Minnesota	North Dakota	Harley Motorcycle
North Dakota	Tucson, Arizona	Harley Motorcycle
Los Angeles, California	San Francisco, California	Harley Motorcycle
San Francisco, California	New Orleans, Louisiana	Cars and Boxcars
New Orleans, Louisiana	Chicago, Illinois	motorcycle

This is what our map looked like when we were finished mapping it out.

Uncle Reuben's Journeys all mapped out! The colors of yarn stand for the mode of transportation.

So many questions and deep thinking came out of this task. Is Texas bigger or smaller than California? Why did he decide to go to flight school? How many states did he go through? How many miles did he travel by motorcycle? Why did he sell his motorcycle in California? How many countries did he visit? Do you think he ever went to Mexico? How long did it take him to get from Chicago to New Orleans by river?
Some questions could be answered and others not, but all of it was interesting!