🌍 Maps Tell Stories
Maps are powerful tools that show us the world. They help us navigate, understand places, and see patterns. Learning to read maps is a skill you'll use throughout your life — from finding your way to understanding global issues.
📍 Types of Maps
🗺️
Physical Maps
Show natural features — mountains, rivers, forests
🏛️
Political Maps
Show borders, countries, cities
🚗
Road Maps
Show roads and transport routes
📊
Thematic Maps
Show data — population, climate, resources
🧭 Compass Directions
N (Raki)
↑
W (Uru) ← • → E (Rāwhiti)
↓
S (Tonga)
North
Raki
South
Tonga
East
Rāwhiti
West
Uru
North-East
Raki-Rāwhiti
South-West
Tonga-Uru
📋 Reading a Map: BOLTS
Every Map Needs...
- Border — the frame around the map
- Orientation — compass rose showing north
- Legend/Key — explains symbols and colours
- Title — tells you what the map shows
- Scale — shows distance (how far things really are)
📏 Understanding Scale
What is Scale?
Scale tells you the relationship between distance on the map and distance in real life.
- 1:50,000 means 1 cm on the map = 50,000 cm (500 m) in reality
- Bar scale — a line showing distance (e.g., 0—1—2 km)
- Large scale = shows small area in detail (like 1:1,000)
- Small scale = shows large area less detail (like 1:1,000,000)
📌 Grid References
Finding Locations
Grid references help you find exact locations on a map:
- Read across first (Eastings) → along the corridor
- Then up (Northings) → up the stairs
- Four-figure reference: squares (e.g., 2345)
- Six-figure reference: precise points (e.g., 234456)
Remember: "Along the corridor and up the stairs!"
✏️ Activities
Activity: School Map
Create a map of your school or classroom:
- Include all BOLTS elements
- Create a legend with at least 5 symbols
- Add a scale (you may need to measure!)
- Mark important locations
My legend symbols:
👩🏫 Teacher Notes
Curriculum Links
- Social Studies: Place and environment
- Mathematics: Scale, measurement
- Geography: Mapping skills
Curriculum alignment
- Geometry — Practices: - A map’s scale is the ratio between a distance on the map and the corresponding distance in the physical world.
- Geometry — Practices: - The radius is the distance from the outside of a circle to the centre. - The diameter is the length of a line through the centre of a circle that touches opposite points on …
📋 Teacher Planning Snapshot
Ngā Whāinga Ako — Learning Intentions
Students will engage with this resource to develop statistical investigation skills — planning inquiries, collecting and analysing data, interpreting distributions, and communicating findings. Tūhuratanga (investigation) is framed as a tool for understanding our communities and environment in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Ngā Paearu Angitū — Success Criteria
- ✅ Students can identify an investigative question, collect relevant data, and display it clearly.
- ✅ Students can interpret statistical findings and discuss what they might mean for a real-world community or environmental context.
Differentiation & Inclusion
Scaffold support: Provide structured investigation frameworks (PPDAC cycle templates) for entry-level access. Offer partially completed data tables for students who need additional support. Extend capable learners by asking them to critique a statistical claim from a news article, or to design their own community data investigation.
ELL / ESOL: Pre-teach statistical vocabulary (median, mode, range, distribution, sample, population). Pair visual representations (graphs, tables) with plain-language explanations. Allow students to discuss statistical ideas orally before writing. Encourage use of home language for initial sensemaking.
Inclusion: Statistical investigation offers natural differentiation — all students can engage with the same real-world question at different levels of mathematical complexity. Neurodiverse learners benefit from structured, step-by-step investigation processes. Use collaborative group investigation formats that distribute roles (data collector, recorder, analyst, presenter).
Mātauranga Māori lens: Tūhuratanga — the practice of careful investigation — resonates deeply with mātauranga Māori. The maramataka is a sophisticated data system: tracking environmental patterns, seasonal cycles, and ecological indicators over generations. Iwi environmental monitoring — counting kaimoana populations, tracking water quality, observing bird migrations — is applied statistical thinking. Framing statistics within community and environmental inquiry connects data to mana whenua responsibilities.
Prior knowledge: Students should have basic familiarity with data displays (bar graphs, dot plots). No prior statistical investigation experience required — the PPDAC inquiry cycle provides accessible scaffolding for first-time investigators.
Curriculum alignment
- Statistics — Statistical Investigation: Plan and conduct investigations using the statistical enquiry cycle — determining appropriate variables and data collection methods; gathering, sorting, and displaying multivariate category, measurement, and time-series data to detect patterns, variations, relationships, and trends; comparing distributions visually; communicating findings, using appropriate display.
- Statistics — Probability: Investigate situations that involve elements of chance by comparing experimental distributions with expectations from models of the possible outcomes, acknowledging uncertainty.