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3-D Maps

3-D Maps

Students learn about the importance of mapping out terrain while they create a 3-D topographical map.
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Lesson Plan

Supplies Needed

Gather all the supplies needed to bring your craft ideas to life! From paints and markers to glue and scissors, our crafts section has everything to spark creativity and make every project truly special.

  • Colored Pencils
  • Paper
  • Recycled Cardboard
  • Scissors
  • Washable No Run School Glue

Steps

  • Step 1

    Understanding the topography of land is critical. Planners need it to show habitable places to live, where natural disasters might occur, what weather patterns to expect, where natural resources might be found, etc. Have students look at maps of a region and note the landforms such as hills, valleys, bodies of water, mountains, etc. Ask them to investigate what could be expected based on the landforms in the area. For instance, most mountainous regions have less rainfall than a flat region, and lakes and rivers near cities may more polluted than isolated or coastal waters because they are more impacted by human activity.

  • Step 2

    Ask students to choose a region to depict in a raised-relief map. To create the map have them draw the region and show the high points and low points of the landforms. Have them sketch on the cardboard to indicate where the landforms are.

  • Step 3

    Ask students to cut cardboard shapes and layer them to show height. They can carve away parts of the base to show indentations where rivers and lakes are. Waterways might be filled with blue paper. They can use markers to color or embellish the background and focal areas to depict what types of terrain are there.

  • Step 4

    Have students present their maps and talk about what they learned about the landforms portrayed.

Standards

SS: People, Places, and Environments: Use maps, globes, and other geographic tools. Demonstrate understanding of the use and misuse of the environment and the relationship between human populations and the physical world.

SS: People, Places, and Environments: Learn where people and places are located and why they are there. Examine the influence of physical systems such as climate, weather and seasons, and natural resources such as land and water on human populations, such as the causes, patterns, and effects of human settlement and migration.

SS: People, Places, and Environments: Use data to analyze human behavior in relation to its physical and cultural environment.

Adaptations

Challenge students to become regional planners. Have them look at a topographical map of a region and analyze what types of weather patterns might occur, the best location to build homes, what types of flora would thrive, etc.

Ask students to investigate some of the professions that require topographical analysis, such as land surveying, landscape architecture, and even neuroradiology which requires a knowledge of the brain's topography.