International Cartographic Association
Commission on Cartography and Children

Newsletter

December, 2009

(Download the pdf version here)

1. Commission meeting in Santiago de Chile (November 18, 2009)

The meeting organized on the scope of ICC 2009 counted with the participation of 22 colleagues from 14 countries (Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Czech Republic, Hungary, Indonesia, Spain, Sweden, The Netherlands, USA).

This year we commemorated the 10th anniversary of the foundation of the Commission on Cartography and Children. In 1995 the Working Group on Cartography and Children began its activities, which constituted a solid starting and reference point to found the actual Commission during the International Cartographic Conference held in Ottawa, Canada only four years later. For all the participants in the meeting it constituted a special honour to count with the presence of Jacqueline Anderson (Montreal, Canada), who dedicated considerable efforts to constitute first the Working Group and later the Commission, playing a fundamental role as Chairperson between 1995 and 2003; and to count also with the presence of Regina Araujo de Almeida (Sao Paulo, Brazil), past vice-president of ICA, who also collaborated in the organization of the Working Group and Commission. In this "birthday" we also remembered colleagues as Henry Castner (who worked together with Jacqueline Anderson organizing the Working Group and the Commission) and Patrick Wiegand, founder member and Commission Chair between 2003 and 2007.

After the short "festivity", the meeting followed with the presentation of our activities between 2007 and 2009. During the last two years the Commission organized two meetings: the first one organized within the scope of the 2nd International Conference on Cartography and GIS, held in Borovets (Bulgaria) in January of 2008 and the second one during the Joint Symposium on Cartography and Geoinformatics for Early Warning and Emergency Management in Prague (Czeh Republic) one year later.

The Commission considers it a very important aim to follow and widen the development of stronger links with international and regional organizations: our common interest is first of all to follow the contacts with the IGU Commission on Geographical Education, and to follow the presentation of the activities of our Commission for regional organizations, trying to wake up the interest of other colleagues working in projects and research related to our field. In the specific case of Europe members have different options to realize this idea, e.g. participating in the activities of EU thematic networks related to Geography, Earth Sciences, etc. Commission members from other continents were encouraged to disseminate the activities of our Commission within other sister regional organizations.

One of the aims for 2007-2011 is the promotion of the use of digital cartography and GIS in schools. In the interest of accomplishing this aim, Commission Co-Chairs encouraged members to organize or participate in the GIS Days, an international event organized in more than 80 countries every year in November. Participants in the meeting were also asked to report their experiences in this kind of activities, sending the information for the Commission newsletter and/or for ICA News too.

Other tasks were also fixed for 2010 and 2011:

- Actualization of the list of members on the Commission website
- Members were asked to send their contributions for the Online Bibliography and Web links on Cartography and Children, to make it accessible for all the Commission members and specialists interested in this theme.
- The Commission will participate in the organization of a new competition, planned for ICC2011 in Paris, France: the Biannual Awards on Educational Cartographic Resources, an initiative that started from a proposal written by our Past Chair Patrick Wiegand in 2005. This year a more detailed preliminary proposal was written and sent to ICA Executive Committee for its consideration and possible approval.
- In our original plan of activities was included the edition of a new book on Educational Cartography (a collection of papers on case studies in this theme). Because of the work on the new "Children Map the World" book, Commission Co-Chairs decided to postpone the contacts about this book on Educational Cartography. Co-Chairs intend to begin the preparatory work during the first half of 2010, arriving at the next Commission Meeting with specific proposals about the themes, structure, etc.

After the coffee break the meeting was exclusively dedicated to the discussion related to Barbara Petchenik Competition, especially the proposals for the improving of organizational aspects, possible changes in the new rules of the competition and the ideas for the Exhibitions organized on the scope of the International Cartographic Conferences. All the participants in the meeting agreed to the importance of following the Commission support to the ICA Executive Committee in relation to the rules and judging of the competition. During one and a half hour we tried to collect the highest number of opinions and proposals related to the Children World Map Competition. In short, some of the themes that we discussed were:

- Questions related to the reproduction and dissemination of winning entries
- Possible changes related to age groups
- Comments and proposals on the physical requirements of the entries
- Current and future themes for the competition
- Positive and negative experiences of the Judging Commission evaluating the entries and deciding the winner entries based on the new competition rules.
- Design of a template of the voting slip for the future competitions

2. Session on Cartography and Children during ICC 2009

The session dedicated to Cartography and Children took place on November 20 from 9:45 to 12:30, being presented the next papers:

- James Carter (USA): Map: Tv Character And Visual Representation Of Space
- José Antonio Nieto (Spain): Andalousie Dans Une Carte:Evaluation D'une Experience Educative
- Marcello Martinelli (Brazil): Analytic And Synthesis Maps On Geographic School Atlases
- Merle Annov (Lithuania): Illustrated Maps (for Children) - Good Start To Educate New Generation Of Users!
- Temenoujka Bandrova: New Historical Atlases For Educational Needs
- José Jesús Reyes Nunez: Ideas For The Use Of Chernoff Faces In School Cartography

Commission members and colleagues interested on Cartography and Children also presented their papers in other sessions:

- Victoria Molochko (Ukraine): The System Of Educational Geographical Atlases In Ukraine
- Rosangela Almeida (Brazil): Production Of Municipal School Atlases
- Concepción Romera (Spain): Educational Atlas Of America, Spain And Portugal
- Concepción Romera (Spain): Educational Resources From The National Atlas Of Spain
- Suely Moreira (Brazil): Multimedia Cartography As Language In Geography Teachers Continuing Studies: Methodological Considerations
- Wolgang Reinhardt (Germany): Some Thoughts On A Body Of Knowledge For Different Purposes In Gi Education
- Regina Araujo de Almeida (Brazil): Cartographic Education Directed To School Teachers And Children: Current And Future Challenges
- Fabian Rodrigo Araya Palacios (Chile): Progress Map For Geography In Chile: Cartographic Materials In Primary And Secondary Schools
- Luz Angel Rocha Salamanca (Colombia): Prototype Of A Gis Aplication For Teaching The Geography Matter At School In Colombia
- Ligia Maria Brochado De Aguiar (Brazil): Atlas Escolares Municipais Imagens e Narrativas
- Windiastuti Rizka (Indonesia): Cartography Education for Children in Indonesia
- Jacqueline Anderson, Sally Hermansen, Lorriane Innes (Canada): "Mapping-in-a-shoebox", a grassroots approach for developing the geospatial literacy of elementary children?

3. Barbara Petchenik Competition 2009

This year a total of 156 drawings were sent to the Barbara Petchenik Competition from 27 countries. This year, the Exhibition in Santiago de Chile was responsibility of our colleague Marcela Riveros (Chile), who made a great job not only organizing the Exhibition, but also edited a wonderful catalogue presenting all the entries submitted to the Exhibition in printed format. This catalogue was included in the conference bag for all the participants, and during our Commission meeting all the members agreed to express our congratulations for all her efforts to contribute to a successful international competition and exhibition.

The Exhibition was open by William Cartwright (ICA President) on November 16, counting also with the presence of representatives of the ICA EC and other distinguished guests.

Inmediately after the Commission meeting, the Judging Commission members participating in ICC 2009 had a meeting to take the final decisions about the winner drawings, based on the preliminar contacts that they had by email between June and September of the present year. The detailed list of winners can be download here.

4. "Children Map the World: Selections from the Barbara Petchenik Children's World Map Competition", Second Volume

In 2005 ESRI published the book entitled "Children Map the World: Selections from the Barbara Petchenik Children's World Map Competition". In September of 2008 the Commission Co-Chairs were contacted by ICA Executive Committee to begin the edition of the 2nd volume of the book "Children Map the World" in collaboration with ESRI. After the first contacts, a team with the participation of four Commission members was formed, which kept in contact with the editors named by ESRI. During the first half of 2009 was made a selection of 100 drawings sent from 37 participant countries to the Barbara Petchenik Competitions in 2005 and 2007. The book was printed for the 24th International Cartographic Conference and was officially presented by ICA President William Cartwright during ICC2009.

By now, the book can be bought accessing ESRI press or other book shops on the Web (e.g. Amazon).

5. Upcoming conferences

The next Commission meeting will be organized in June 15-20, 2010 in Nessebar, Bulgaria, within the 3rd International Conference on Cartography and GIS (website:www.cartography-gis.com)

Other conferences to be held till the next newsletter:

- Gi4DM 2010 Conference, Geomatics for Crisis Management (Torino, Italy, 2-4 February, 2010)
- 5th International Workshop on Digital Technologies in Cartographic Heritage (Vienna, Austria, 22-24 February, 2010)

If the Commission members have any information about conferences that can be interesting for our colleagues, please send the information for Commission Co-Chairs and we are going to include it in the next newsletter.

6. Possible date for our next newsletter: March, 2010

Temenoujka Lubenova BANDROVA
Associate Professor
Department of Photogrammetry and Cartography
University of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Geodesy
1, Chr. Smirnenski Blvd. 1046 Sofia
Tel: +359 887 83 27 02 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              +359 887 83 27 02      end_of_the_skype_highlighting Fax: +359 2 866 22 01
bandrova_fgs@uacg.bg
BULGARIA
 
José Jesús REYES NUŃEZ
Associate Professor
Department of Cartography and Geoinformatics
Eötvös Loránd University
Pázmány Péter sétány 1/A, Budapest
H-1117
Tel: +36 1 372 2975 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              +36 1 372 2975      end_of_the_skype_highlighting Fax: +36 1 372 2951
jesus@ludens.elte.hu
HUNGARY