More Map Resources

I love feedback on my posts--and especially when they include suggestions or resources to share. In response to last week's post on making Salt Dough Maps, Robin Miller of Hot Springs sent in this useful tip: "It is even easier if you first put the ingredients (including the food coloring) for the salt dough in a gallon Ziploc bag.  That way you can mix the salt dough up in the bag.  No messy hands!" 
  

And a few weeks ago, I shared some of what I learned at a Teaching with Primary Sources workshop I attended in Great Falls--including ideas of ways to use maps (making laminated puzzle pieces out of them for students to assemble and asking students to trace today's reservations on clear acetate and placing those pieces atop maps showing historic reservation boundaries.)

In response, Broadview teacher librarian Jon Kohn sent me JPGs of two Encyclopaedia Brittanica [London] maps of Montana, one from 1896 and the other from 1903, that he thinks are interesting to compare with Father DeSmet's 1851 Map--and which are interesting in their own right. I'm sharing them with his permission.

Jon notes: "The 1896 map has all of northern Montana as the "Gros Ventre, Piegan, Blood, Blackfeet, and River Crow Indian Reservation" just south of the Northwest Territories of Canada. The Crow Reservation still goes west almost to Livingston, The Northern Cheyenne Res shows the agency in Busby and is labeled "Nor. Shoshone Reservation," battle sites are prominent, most modern counties are missing, etc. The 1903 map shows the Canadian province of Assiniboia, still lacks some counties, but shows the extent of surveying and platting lands."

What else do you notice?

Looking for more map resources? Check out the Mapping Montana and the West on the Montana Memory Project, American Memory's map collections, and the Digital Sanborn Map Collection. The Sanborn maps are historical fire insurance maps of Montana cities and towns, showing blocks with "the outline of each building, the size, shape and construction materials, heights, and function of structures." (These maps are available by subscription only, but the Montana Historical Society has paid for a subscription on behalf of all Montana residents. Feel free to email me for the password to access this amazing resource.)

And while we are on the topic of maps, check out the blog post "Stop making students memorize maps," which argues that students should use maps, not memorize them.