Summary

We worked on the traveler activity pin during 5 days of day camp.  Below is the information for day 3.

Supplies

• US Atlases (you could use state maps too).  We had a very nice set donated to us from State Farm Insurance.
• Paper
• Markers

Requirements covered and activities for each requirement

Map and Compass BL: 3. Draw a map of your neighborhood. Label the streets and plot the route you take to get to a place that you often visit.

• Have each boy draw their neighborhood map.  Show them to the adult partners.
• Note, some of them will do this right away and some will need help not drawing everything in a straight line.  Unless they really live on a street with everything on it, have the adults with their group help them.

Traveler 9. Look at a map legend on a road map of your area.  Learn what the symbols mean.  Show your den members what you have learned.

Traveler 10. On a road map of your area, find a place of interest, and draw two different routes between it and your home.  Use the map legend to determine which route is shorter in miles.

• Find The Mystery City:  Divide the den into two teams.  Give each team captain a state highway map.  Call out the names of various cities in the state and have the team locate them on the map.  The first team to locate the city wins the round (win or lose, make sure both teams locate the town before moving on to the next).  The team that locates the most towns first wins. (boyscouttrail.com)
• Note we again implemented this by studying Oklahoma first and then moving on to other states. This provided some familiarity with the maps because they needed practice.  When we moved to other states, I chose nearby states first.

Analysis (Start/Stop/Continue)

• Their map use is getting much better by today so the adults didn’t have to help as much on the game.  They were needed for the map drawing.  For the game, I had the adults suggest interesting places to find.  We managed to stump all the groups for awhile with a very small town!
• Start: This still needs an adult with each group as the boys still needed help navigating the maps.
• Stop: Nothing (this worked well)
• Continue: I would do this session again as it is, with the start suggestion added.