All the world's condensed into one little piece of paper. How? On a map, of course! Ever wondered how it is done? It is an elaborate process but you could learn to do it too, starting with a map of your own room or house.
Santhosh Kr Subramanian, ‘Top' Executive Officer, Bambaram Toy Library, tells you how to go about it: The basic objective of one's map is to graphically represent landmarks/objects for others to identify and relate it to the actual area. So one should look for more permanent features/landmarks and leave out temporary ones when one is making a map. Examples of permanent features are: mountains, rivers, bridges, streams, petrol bunks, hospitals, temples and the like. Things you can avoid are buildings under construction, individual houses, less prominent trees, vehicles, since these objects do not remain forever.
First, pick up an area you are familiar with. Like in your house, scan all the interesting objects or those that stand out in the rooms — doors, windows, clock, electronic goods and other household items. Chart the position of the objects in relation to the room and measure the distance between them, say by the number of steps taken, and scale them to size.
For eg: One cm on your map could mean 10 steps in actual distance. This is called the scale of a map, one of the features of any good map. The others are key/ legend and directions, besides the title and date.
A key or a legend is a symbol or colour code used to mark certain aspects/locations in the map. For instance, the popular “red cross” is used in maps to indicate the location of hospitals or clinics. You can also come up with your own keys. Colour keys are also used to indicate density of population, type of terrain or geographical elements like water, land or type of winds. You could use blue to indicate water, brown for hills, green for parks and so on.
Once you are done, you can check with your parents on how good your map is. The best way to go about it is to hide some object in a place and mark it on your map. Ask your brother/sister to “hunt” for the object. If they are able to do so without any difficulty, then you have mastered the art!
After mapping your home, you can graduate to the path you take to your school or playground. Now you have an idea to keep you busy while travelling to school, don't you?
Things needed to draw your own map
Piece of paper
Measuring scale
Pencils (preferably coloured)
Compass. If you don't have a compass, you can ask your parents to mark the directions for you.
Types of maps:
Political or Congressional Maps
Population Distribution
Geologicalu
Historical
National Forest and Forest types etc
Climate
Road
Economic
Topography
