Map Reading Skills

On the 5th December 2015, Public Services L3 had a lesson on how to read a geological map. We were first given a map to familarise ourselves what a map looks like and the symbols that are available.

We first learnt what a 'grid referance' was, both 4 and 6 figure references and we were asked to split ourselves into pairs. In this we were given the task to find a point on the map and work out it's 4 figure grid reference, we had to find one point each. Each group provided us with their own grid reference and all the other groups had to work out the grid referance that the groups had provided and work out what the point is.

Next we did exactly the same, but this time with the 6 figure references to make it a little harder. Everyone found this a bit tricky but we decided we should have a couple of rounds of this to enable us to improve.

Lastly we had a sheet of symbols with instructions infront of us. We were informed that these instructions were linked to the sheet of symbols which made a picture if we completed the task correctly. We had to match the instructions with the symbols to enable us to create a picture. This task was done so the group had a chance to get grips with map reading.

Strengths with the Map Reading Skills:

Right at the start of this session, I was feeling rather confident about the task. I have lead and had experience in many expeditions which needed high map reading skills which means I have a large amount of knowledge about what is coming up. My partener, Rob, was less confident about the task as he hadn't really had any experience in map reading at all. I decided to help him out a little to allow his confidence to grow. However, his performance on map reading definetly improved by the end of the session. Also, in the symbols task, I didn't find the exercise that difficult as we had the answers right infront of us, i.e the map. Myself and my partner worked well as a team where Rob was reading the instructions, and I was figuring out which symbol to use as had the most experience between the two of us.

Areas to improve with the Map Reading Skills:

However, each group had a limited amount of room to work with. The maps were extremly large which meant working in small conditions was difficult to work with. The general noise in the room was getting quite loud which meant I did get distracted at times. In the map symbols exercise, one of the tasks did have a printing mistake, myself and Rob had to make changes to our final answer when we didn't need to.