Teachers' Resources Available from Ball State University Libraries

Back-to-School:  Educational Resources Available from Ball State University Libraries

Students, faculty, and other educators can access important classroom resources like maps, lessons, and learning games created by the Ball State University Libraries’ GIS Research and Map Collection (GRMC) from the Cardinal Scholar institutional repository.  Cardinal Scholar allows users to access the valuable resources from any location around the world with Web availability.

Teachers and student-teachers can find numerous custom maps, games, posters, lesson plans, map worksheets and activities, cartographic tutorials, and other resources in Cardinal Scholar.  These classroom resources were developed specifically for K-12 teachers to use and share.

Teachers and students from around the world have used the GRMC teaching and learning resources accessible through Cardinal Scholar.  A student-teacher from Shenandoah Elementary School (Middletown, Indiana) used posters featuring maps and photographs from every modern war to create a Veterans Day exhibit at her school.  Student-teacher Kevin Ginder created a bulletin board at Mount Comfort Elementary School (Mount Comfort, Indiana) using maps from Cardinal Scholar.

Kate Sutter, social studies teacher at Lebanon (Missouri) High School, displayed the Black Diamonds: Negro League Baseball map in her classroom (above, click to enlarge).  A Black History Month maps presentation from the Cornerstone Center for the Arts class and Black History Month map posters are also available from Cardinal Scholar.

Danielle Boultinghouse accessed many of the GRMC resources for her lessons while teaching at an urban school in Indianapolis.  “I used map posters of Australia during a weeklong unit.  The students loved the maps and being able to learn about a faraway place.  I also used the Ball State Cardinal Life board game in a lesson about college and used maps to teach about using scale and determining distance for math class.”  Many of the games and lessons are adaptable to use with iPads and other classroom technology.

Chelsea Wappes used Cardinal Scholar while teaching in Fort Wayne and said “Map resources are a fabulous tool for teachers.”  A graduate student studying in England used some of the cartographic tutorials available from Cardinal Scholar to teach students about how to read topographic maps.

James Carson, County Wicklow, Ireland, learned about a Jane Austen literary map available from the GRMC after using the Guide to Cartographic Resources for English/Literature in Cardinal Scholar. A guide to cartographic resources about women’s history is also available, and the GRMC created a series of custom maps about women’s issues called Women in the World now available from Cardinal Scholar, including maps about female heads of state, breast cancer (above), and even Miss Universe winners.

Ball State University students volunteering with College Mentors for Kids use map games for after-school activities with elementary students.  Russia Clue and Canada Clue are a popular twist from the original Clue board game featuring famous people, cultural objects, and the provinces of Canada or the former nations of the Soviet Union instead of suspects, weapons, and rooms.

The Rinker Center for International Programs displays the country map posters (Russia, above) from Cardinal Scholar for the weekly Culture Exchange programs.  These posters include a map of the country with photographs from National Geographic magazine and atlases from the Bracken Library Atlas Collection.

To find all of the available resources from the GRMC, click on “Communities and Collections” on the left side of the main Cardinal Scholar page.  Scroll down to the Information Technology section, and the GRMC will be listed under University Libraries.  On the GRMC page, click on “browse by title” in the middle of the page.  This lists all the resources in the collection.  For a more specific search, type in a subject such as “Africa” or “map game.”  Users can click on the title of the resource and save it for use in papers, presentations, classroom activities, or other research or print any of the games and maps.  (The GRMC has two large-format printers available for the Ball State University community).  And check the repository frequently because the GRMC adds resources every week.

For more information about using Cardinal Scholar for research and learning, please contact the GRMC at 765-285-1097.