How to Make a 3-D Region Map
3-D region maps are a great way to bring geography alive for children or students. Students love exploring 3-D globes with elevations and color coding to signify the geographical regions. Making a 3-D region map of a county or state or country is an excellent way to help engage the kinesthetic learning-style learners in the classroom which tend to be the highest proportion of students in the classroom yet sometimes the least likely to be reached by traditional visual (writing and images) and auditory (lecture) classroom methods.
Things You'll Need
- Maps
- Cardstock
- Posterboard
- Cardboard
- Modeling clay
- Salt and flour clay
- Craft dough
- Paper mache
- Paint
- Paintbrushes
Instructions
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1
Select the region for the 3-D map. A teacher could distribute a unique country or state per student as an assignment or a world map could be created.
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2
Draw an outline of the region on a piece of cardstock or poster board or cardboard.
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3
Create a key for the 3-D region map displaying the color coding for the elevations or geographical topography.
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4
Mark the geographic regions and elevations on the regional map outline using colors or symbols.
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5
Mix up and/or distribute the material that will be used to give the region map the 3-D dimensions. Materials that work well include modeling clay, salt and flour clay, craft dough or paper mache.
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6
Apply the material--clay, dough or paper mache--to the map to create the dimensions for the various elevations and geographical topography.
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7
Paint the material--clay, dough or paper mache--if it was not pre-colored to match the key for the 3-D region map.
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Tips & Warnings
Other details can be added like trees, homes and animals for the regions if desired.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit Globe image by NJ from Fotolia.com
