Interactive Canadian Geographic floor maps at LOLPS

Julie Druker | Feb 17, 2016

It is not the first time that Mr. Hull, a grade 7/8 teacher at Land O'Lakes Public School in Mountain Grove has relied on the use of Canadian Geographic's huge and handy historical floor maps to teach his students about Canadian and world history.

Canadian Geographic offers a number of free teaching aids to teachers and last year Mr. Hull's students used similar maps to learn about the War of 1812.

This year Mr. Hull has been using one of the company’s newest teaching aids, titled “Drawn to Victory”, which helps to bring the history of World War 1 to life for students.

When I visited Mr. Hull's classroom on January 28, the students were watching a documentary titled “In King and Country” about the battle at Passchendaele.

Later in the gym Mr. Hull instructed the students to unfold a huge floor map depicting the European countries involved in World War 1. For this unit the students were looking at the war’s impact on the populations of Great Britain, Germany, France and Belgium and in particular, population statistics of these countries both before and after the war.

With the assistance of plastic chains, the students were first asked to outline the borders of the European countries involved in the conflict. Then, using a number of colored blocks (each representing 1 million civilians), they showed the populations in each country before the war broke out. Removing blocks showed the number of people killed during the war in each country.

Hull said that the interactive maps help students better understand the geographic area of conflict and its impact on the populations of the countries involved by giving the students numerous hands-on opportunities to interact with the maps and their related tools. The package not only includes the floor maps but also a number of different topics of focus that include war cartography, map reading, Canadians in battle and Europe then and now.

Hull’s goal is to make history real for the students and he stressed that some of the students who may have had relatives involved in the conflict better understand the history. Hull had nothing but good things to say about these teaching aids, which bring his students out of the classroom to explore history in a unique and interactive way.

For more information about the many teaching aids available from Canadian Geographic visit cangeoeducation.ca/resources