Towards the Production of an Iowa State Atlas for K-12
Existing atlases from other states offer inspiration for Iowa educators to generate a similar product that works across subjects and grades.
Geographers study places as physicians study human anatomy. They are interested in:
- identifying the components that make up places
- understanding how they work together
- finding ways to make improvements to the overall health of a place's system
As stewards of places, Iowans beneft from map literacy.
Atlases are the Grey's Anatomy of the world.
They allow us to diagram and annotate the complexities of places and regions.
Equality Before the Atlas
The Geographic Educators of Nebraska (GEON) have been instrumental in creating a model for a K-12 state atlas, thanks to the efforts of Dr. Randy Bertolas.
The atlas is divided into multiple chapter topics: introduction to geography, physical geography, human geography, Nebraska-specific features, agriculture, and government.
Thousands of hard-copy atlases have been distributed to classrooms throughout the state. Even better, GEON has made printable PDFs available for individual maps and lesson plans.
Eureka!
The California Geographic Alliance was able to acquire funding in 2011 to complete its student atlas, incorporating such topics as water resources, American Indigenous history, the Gold Rush, climate, animal migrations, and so on.
Accompanying the atlas is an online curation of StoryMaps and inquiry-based lesson plans.
Virginia Is for Atlases
The Virginia Geographic Alliance (VGA) has made an online atlas available on its website and is seeking funding to print hard copies of the publication.
Moreover, the VGA has worked with Esri products to develop a series of atlas-adjacent GeoInquiries lessons, such as: Geography of Emancipation, Jamestown 1607-1634, Land Use and the Chesapeake Bay, Standing Up to Jim Crow, and Virginia's Resources and Economy.
Adopting the State Atlas Model for Iowa
Prospects for an Iowa K-12 State Atlas can draw from lessons learned in previous examples.
Multiple qualities make the California, Nebraska, and Virginia atlases useful for teachers: maps with text and guiding questions, landscape photos, simple layouts and symbology, and lesson plans that connect directly to state standards.
Moreover, data from these atlases have been repackaged and updated via web mapping applications to complement the physical copies of the maps.
Our Atlas We Prize and Our Maps We Will Maintain.
Atlas authors and advocates have sought to make these resources freely available to teachers. As content standards for teacher preparation shift, cross-curricular products like atlases can prime eductors to not take maps at face value and to recognize the grand drama that maps tell.
An atlas can also be something that a student takes and uses in various classrooms throughout the school day: math (e.g., measuring distance), literature class (e.g., a map about alums of the Iowa Writers' Workshop), and science (e.g., Iowa's natural resources, weather, and climate).
Ideally, an Iowa K-12 State Atlas would function as a daily resource that students and teachers employ.
The Geographic Alliance of Iowa (GAI) and Iowa State University Extension and Outreach are teaming up to produce an Iowa K-12 State Atlas in 2024.
Negotiations are underway regarding the atlas's template, outline of topics, collaborators, and sources of funding.
Please submit any feedback to Thomas Larsen (thomas.larsen@uni.edu) and Amy Logan (amylogan@iastate.edu).
