Roots & Shoots Activity

Make
Your Own Digital Community Map

Table of Contents
Assessing Community Need & Potential Resources

Part One: Investigating Your Community

Part Two: Preparing Your Map

Part Three: Go Digital!

Technology Lesson
Create a new map
Title your layers
Add your first location to the map
Add photos and/or videos to your placemark
Add more locations to the map
Adding a line
Style the map
Choose your base map
Share your map

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Start Your Campaign

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Assessing Community Need & Potential

Resources
During this activity students explore their communities to:
Learn about the geography, characteristics and features of their local area;
Determine areas of need for people, animals and the environment; and
Identify potential resources that may support efforts to meet community needs.
Find the complete Roots & Shoots Formula and Community Mapping 101 at
rootsandshoots.org/educators.

Part One: Investigate Your Community

In advance; discuss the importance of understanding and mapping your community. As
a group, begin taking note of what is on the way to school. Imagine looking at the
community from a birds eye view. Some guiding questions:
1. Are there any major intersections near your school?
2. Notice the cars and people walking outside, imagine where they are going and
what they do to have fun, where they work, eat, sleep etc.
3. Do you see animals, wild or domestic? Where do they go during the day? Where
do they get their food, where do they play or go when they are sick?
4. Do you see any plants or trees on your way to school? Who waters them and
how did they get there? What makes them important to your community?

Part Two: Preparing Your Map

Draw, download or purchase a map of your city. We recommend mapping a two to five
mile radius around your zip code. We recommend first drawing your map, but if you
want to Go Digital (see below: Technology Lesson) right away use this as a guideline
for designing your Google Maps Engine Lite map.
Start Adding Points!
Map points for People, Animals, and Environment. There are two types of points to
map, Characteristics and Resources, below are some suggestions to get you started.
Remember you might want to share your map publically so dont mark your home or
your classmates homes.

Example: Ms. Gossett led her class of first-grade students in first mapping a major
highway and large bodies of water as reference points for mapping the school and
other community features such as: a local state park, the YMCA (where many students
play ball) and two local wildlife refuges, among others.
Look at your map and identify areas of improvement for you community:
One quality your community could improve to make it a better habitat for
people.
One quality your community could improve to make it a better habitat for
animals.
One quality your community could improve to make it a better environmental
habitat.
Use this knowledge to pick one area that you feel you can make the biggest impact!
This will be your Roots & Shoots campaign.
Example: Ms Gossetts first grade classroom in Sebring, FL mapped a number of
Florida Black Bears coming into areas populated by people in the community. They saw
that people dont always know what to do when they see a black bear around and
decided to build awareness around black bears and how to safely co-exist with them.

Part Three: Go Digital!

Open up Google Maps Engine Lite (mapsengine.google.com/map) to transform

your map into a digital masterpiece!
Here are some helpful videos that you can use as reference for GME Lite in
addition to this tutorial.

Technology Lesson
Google Maps Engine Lite lets you quickly and easily make beautiful maps, and share
them with students, teachers and communities. With this tool, you have the ability to:
import data from a spreadsheet, or simply draw and add points of interest,
lines and shapes.
style the points and shapes on your map, and choose from nine base map
styles.
share your map with colleagues or students and embed it on your website and
in your Roots & Shoots project profile.
Before you start: In order to use GME Lite, your students will need a Google account.
Please check the age requirements to have a Google Account (in the US its 13 years). If
your students are younger (or if you dont want to require them to create a Google
account for security or privacy reasons), you can create a dummy Google Account with
a shared password that they can all use at the same time.

Create a new map

1. Log in to your Google account.

2. Go to Google Maps Engine Lite:

http://mapsengine.google.com/map
3. In the welcome pop-up, select
Create a new map.

4. Click the text Untitled map to edit the map title and description.
For example:

5. Click Save to see your changes in the left-hand panel

Title your layers

Click the text Untitled layer to edit the map layer. You can create up to three layers of
data. For the R&S community mapping exercise we recommend titling the layers
People, Animals and the Environment so they match your existing categories.

Tip:

When adding points/lines/polygons to the map, be sure you have the desired layer
selected.

Add your first location to the map

1. You can either use the search bar to search for the location of a place or you
can browse the map to find the place yourself. Or if you have already found the
location on the map, you can simply add the point by hand.
In this example, lets search for Happywoods Dr. Using the search bar, type in
Happywoods Dr. click the magnifying glass icon. If the search result is correct, click it
and click Add to Map.

If browsing the map, click the placemark icon under the search bar and then click the
map where you want to add the placemark.

To delete unwanted placemarks, click on them, then click on trash icon in the lower
right corner of the placemark bubble.

2. Give your placemark a title and description. Click on the placemark, then click
the pencil at the bottom right of the infowindow, next to the trash icon, to
switch to editing mode. Add a title and describe the location. Then click Save.

Add photos and/or videos to your placemark

Click on the camera icon in the bottom right corner of the infowindow. Then you will
be able to choose images from:

Google Image Search: You can simply type in a search into the search box and
the window will populate with example images from Google images.
URL: If you find a specific image you would like to use, you can copy and paste
the URL of the image you would like to use.
Video search: You can simply type in a search into the search box and the
window will populate with example videos to choose from Youtube.

Tip:

You can use your own photos by making the desired images public on Google Plus (or
anywhere else on the web). Once it is published on the web, you can right click on the
image, click copy image URL then paste it into the image URL box in Maps Engine Lite.

Add more locations to the map

You can add points, lines or polygons to illustrate your human, animal and
environmental characteristics:
Points (or placemarks): represent a very specific place on the map (a city or
town, a school, library, etc.)
Lines: represent a path or route (a running path, a drive, a river, an animal trail
etc.)
Polygons: present an area (a country, a neighborhood, the grounds of a place, a
park, etc.)
Lets try adding a line next!

Adding a line
1. Add a line to represent a path or route. Click on the line tool under the search
bar in order to start drawing a line. Click on the map to draw the line. Doubleclick the last point of the line to stop editing.

In this example, lets draw around Lake Josephine to show the animal trail that exists
there.

Tip:

If you need to zoom in or out to more easily draw your line, use the minus button at
the bottom lefthand corner of the map.
Dont forget to give your line a title and description!
2. Add a polygon to represent a neighborhood, the grounds of a place, a park, etc.
To start drawing a polygon, click on the line tool under the search bar. Once
youre finished drawing the polygon, click on the first point you drew in order to
complete it.

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In this example, lets draw a polygon around where Lake Wales Ridge National
Refuge.

Tip:

Navigate to the place youd like to draw a polygon around in Google Maps using the
search or browse options. Make sure you can see the extend of the area in your map
view before starting to draw your polygon.

Dont forget to give it a title and description!

Style the map

1. To change the icons of a placemark, hover over the bear sighting item in
the left hand panel and click on the paint can.

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You can change the color or shape of your placemark, or click more icons for more
options!

The icon will be updated on the map and in the lefthand panel.

2. Change the color and appearance of your polygons and lines. Hover over the
item in the lefthand panel and click the paint icon to edit.

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3. Add labels to your map. In the lefthand panel, click on Labels and then select
the name column to give your placemarks labels.

Choose your base map

In the lefthand panel, locate the Base map section and click the downward facing
area to the right. You will have a choice between nine base maps.

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Share your map

Click on the green Share button at the top righthand corner to share your map.

1. Share the map with your teacher, classmates and neigh-BEARs by adding their
email addresses.

ip: you Share your map with other teachers, students of friends you can choose
TWhen

whether they are able to just view the map or if they can also edit the map. This
function can be used to let students collaborate in building the map. You can even test
their observation skills by having them build the map from memory to start.
2. Share your map link on Social Media by clicking on the Google+, Facebook or
Twitter buttons.

3. Share and Embed your map on your Jane Goodalls Roots & Shoots Project
Report.
a. Change your Privacy Settings to Public.

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b. Click on the folder button on the top left right below your description,
and choose embed from the dropdown menu.

c. Copy the Embed code and paste onto the Create Project form at
rootsandshoots.org/createproject

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Start Your Campaign

Plan your project! Visit www.rootsandshoots.org/getstarted to get some project
planning tips and enter your project idea.
Example: Ms. Gossetts class decided to launch a Be Bear Aware Campaign that
includes awareness activities at a local PTO Hoedown like: making bear cupcakes,
handing out bear safety brochures and having community members mark bear
sightings on the community map. In the future they are hoping to make trash can
labels to remind people to keep their trash bear safe.
Be counted! Update your project report www.rootsandshoots.org/createproject
with your campaign outcomes.
Celebrate Your Impact! Visit www.rootsandshoots.org/getstarted for some
ideas.

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