Mapping your Town or Area via Pokémon Go for Education ....
Wanting a map that goes beyond streets try Mapbox. Mapbox allows you to create not only street maps but also outdoor maps that add trails and paths to your map. You can also see the terrain and landcover data for your area.
My Maps by Google is another customizing mapping tool you can use with your students. With My Maps you can add customize layers to your map. With My Maps you can add images, video clips, directions to a location, points of interests, and so much more. What I really love about My Maps is you can measure distances on your map. This is a great tool if you are teaching distances via maps.
Are you wanting your students to create a story with their map, then you might want to try Mapme. Mapme allows you to create a story via a map. You can add images and videos to your pins as well as a story for each pin. This tool would be great in mapping out where students found their pocket monsters.
Another online map creating tool is Snazzy Maps. Snazzy maps allows you to customize your map by adding points of interest. Snazzy Maps would be a great tool to use with students that are learning code and website design. Snazzy Maps will give you the code for your map after you have made your customization.
If your students do not have access to computers to create maps, no worries you can do this activity offline to. You can ask your city for copies of the city map, print one off of Google Maps, or have students draw out a map of their town or area. Once you have decided on which map creating tool you are going to use with your students then you are ready to start adding Pocket Monsters, PokéStops, and Gyms to your map. Before students can add pocket monsters they will have to do a little research on the different pocket monsters. For example students might not want to put a water pocket monster in the middle of a wooded area. Students may also need to do some research on your local points of interest. The points of interest are were you will want to put your PokéStops and gyms.
If you are creating a paper map you might want to add a plastic sheet over your map and mark the PokéStops, Pocket Monsters and Gyms on the plastic. The extra pieces of lamination you cut off after laminating a project, poster, etc.. work well for this. You then can lay the Pokémon objects over your paper map. This would also be a great way to explain how augmented reality works. That something digital (the Pokémon elements) over lay on something physical (the map).
With your maps you can verify your Pokémon elements by using the Pokémon Go app. Students can check to see if the locations they picked for PokéStops and Gyms were the same locations Pokémon Go picked. With your maps you can students figure out distance between PokéStops, Gyms, the school, their house, and etc... They can also map out their path that will maximize their time in reaching as many PokéStops as possible in order to replace their PokéBalls.
To add a writing element to this activity you can have students write a background story for each pocket monster they placed on their map along with a backstory for the area they put the PokéStops and Gyms. If creating digital maps via online tools have students write in a blog or webpage and embed their map into their story. If using student interactive notebooks you can add the paper map or a QR Code of the digital map to the notebooks.
What to Put on Your Maps:
- Schools
- Hospitals
- Parks
- Main Streets
- Local Attractions
- Point of Interest
- Landmarks
- Churches
- Ponds, Lakes, Rivers
Resources:
- Scribble Maps - https://www.scribblemaps.com
- ZeeMaps - https://www.zeemaps.com
- Mapbox - https://www.mapbox.com
- My Maps - https://www.google.com/maps
- MapMe - https://mapme.com
- Snazzy Maps - https://snazzymaps.com
- Pokemon for Education via Quiver - http://www.quivervision.com/pokemon-go-education-katie-ann-wilson
- Create Your Own Pocket Monster via Quiver - http://www.diaryofatechiechick.com/2016/07/create-your-own-pocket-monster-via.html
You know, there are special maps for Pokemo Go http://www.pokemonmapping.com/ which you can use to locate a rare Pokes!
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