Topo New Mexico
The New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science is conducting a grand map-making project for students in the 8th to 12th grades.
Relief image from John Hopkins Applied Physics Lab.
http://www.jhuapl.edu
Overview of the Topo New Mexico Project:
The Museum is planning to create a huge relief map of the State of New Mexico that will be a permanent outdoor sculpture. To do this, we want students across the state to assemble the three-dimensional sections showing the surface of the state. Students will make layered sections using topographic maps produced especially for this project. About 1,300 sections will need to be assembled. These sections will be molded and then cast in concrete at the Museum in 3 x 3 foot blocks. These will become a finished 36 x 40 foot scale relief map of the state. By joining the Topo New Mexico project, your students will be helping to create this permanent sculpture of the state.
What we are asking you to do:
If you agree to join this project, your students will construct a minimum of three one-foot square sections of the state from maps we will send you. We provide most of the materials (listed below). You will be given a choice of areas to construct. The first priority is to allow schools to do their local area, then additional sections are given on a first-come-first-serve basis.
We expect teachers to assemble a minimum of three sections. The time you spend on an entire curricular unit will depend on what additional activities you choose to do, and how familiar your students are with maps.
The number of schools allowed to participate will be limited by available funding. These materials are on the state materials adoption list and your school's participation is available through that. The Museum has a limited number of schools that can be covered through its state budget. For more information, please call or e-mail Tish Morris at the telephone number or e-mail address listed below.
You may request materials for either the Fall or Spring semester. We want completed blocks to begin casting at the end of each semester.
The Museum will provide:
- Maps of the sections you will construct. These are specially made for this project by the State of New Mexico, Information Systems Division, Geographic Information Support Services in Santa Fe.
- Linoleum floor tile (asbestos-free) that the students will cut and then build-up in layers to form their section
- Carbon paper
- Glue
- Scroll saw blade
- Curriculum guide with instructions for doing the project, includes cross-disciplinary activities, referenced to New Mexico standards. Many of these activities can be a basis for interdisciplinary studies in your school.
- A video with two parts: first an exciting 7 minute preview of the project to get your students interested, then a "how-to" segment to show how to construct the sections.
Each school must provide:
- A scroll saw or jigsaw that accepts plain-end blades (not pin-end)
- Safety goggles to wear when using the saw
- Three pieces of scrap wood to build a corner-shaped assembly jig; 12" x 12" x 8";
- Nails for assembly jig
- Either a "square" corner ruler or two rulers taped to a table at right angles, this becomes a tracing jig.
- Clamps for securing map to tracing jig
- Pencils--sharp!
- Sand paper
- Pliers or wire cutters-- to shape small pieces
- We recommend coordinating with other faculty at your school, especially the shop teacher, but also art, social studies, etc.
- You must complete the sections by the end of the semester you choose and return them to the Museum.
Highlights of the curriculum:
Learning the basics about reading maps, detailed instructions for building Topo New Mexico, comparing vegetation to elevation and rainfall and a game that relates surface features of the state to their geologic origins. Also included are ideas for learning about the natural resources, culture and history of the area, doing an oral history with elders in the community, and historic map activities. In addition, there are open-ended projects such as describing the journey from home to school, and how topography affects students' lives. Finally, there is an internet activity to use their new map skills by plotting current earthquakes.
Questions and ways to contact us:
Topo New Mexico
NM Museum of Natural History & Science
1801 Mountain Rd NW
Albuquerque, NM 87104
505-841-2800 fax 505-841-2866
Tish Morris at 505-841-2882, email tish.morris@state.nm.us
