MENTAL MAPPING
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Preview of Main Ideas
We all form impressions and images of our physical surroundings—even of places we’ve never been. These impressions are what geographers call our mental maps. Geographers are interested in the concept of mental maps and how they are developed. Understanding the way people view different regions can help experts understand and predict how the land may be used and, among other uses, what patterns of migration may be expected. This lesson uses mental maps to explore student perceptions of different regions of the United States.
Connection With the Curriculum
United States and world history are filled with examples of regional suspicions, misconceptions, and antagonisms. World conflict and cooperation, topics commonly studied in world geography, are influenced by the perceptions that people of different nations have of each other. The geographic and research tools applied in this lesson are useful in all social studies contexts.
Teaching Level: Grades 7-12
Geography Standards
1. How to use maps and other tools and technologies
2. How to use mental maps to organize information about people, places, and environments in a spatial context
6. How culture and experience influence people’s perceptions of places and regions
Geography Themes:
Location, Place, Human/Environment Interaction, Movement, Regions
Materials
One copy of the “Where Would You Like to Live?” handout for each student
One copy of a United States outline map for each student and one map for each group
Color pencils or markers
Calculators (Optional)
Classroom atlases (Optional)
Overhead projector (Optional)
Objectives
Students are expected to
Understand the concept of mental mapping
Construct maps using their own mental maps of places where they would like to live
Opening the Lesson
All of us have images of different regions of the world that we have developed through a variety of processes. These processes are usually a mix of factual data, incomplete information, and personal bias or subconscious prejudices. This lesson explores these mental images, or mental maps. No one has a totally accurate image of the world, so there is no completely accurate mental map, although people’s mental maps of their own immediate environment tend to be more realistic than those of places they’ve never visited.
Ask students to discuss their images of some places in the United States or elsewhere in the world. What mental pictures come to mind at the mention of the South, New England, the Pacific Northwest, or a region in your state? What mental pictures come to mind at the mention of Canada, China, Germany, Japan, and Nigeria? Are the images positive or negative? How were they developed?
Ask students where in the United States they would most like to live. Ask where they would least like to live. Explore the reasons for their holding these views of different regions of the country. Explain that the images and perceptions they hold are part of their unique mental maps of the United States. Each person has a different mental map, but common patterns emerge when images of various regions are combined and mapped.
Tell students that they will explore mental maps by following this sequence of activities:
Ask the following research question: Where in the United States do students in the class most want to live (other than where they live now)?
Collect data.
Analyze the data by using maps.
Developing the Lesson
Distribute the “Where Would You Like to Live?” handout. Have students rank the states and the District of Columbia using the scale at the top of the work sheet. Tell students how to use the ranking scale. (For example, a ranking of 1 means the student would never want to live there. A ranking of 5 means the student would really like to live there. A ranking of 3 means the student doesn’t have strong feelings one way or the other.)
Personal Preferences
Have students map their own preferences. Divide the states into four or five groupings from lowest to highest. Assign each group a color. A color gradation from light (for the group of lowest rated states) to dark (for the group of highest rated states) should result in an easy-to-read map. Direct students to color each state with the appropriate color.
Discuss the personal-preference maps by asking students the following questions:
Why would you like to live in the states that you rated highly?
How did you decide that certain states are undesirable?
Did you rate neighboring states more highly than more distant states? Why?
What experience or information did you use to arrive at your decision? (Answers may include previous travel, books, short stories, TV programs, locations of friends or relatives, discussions with adults.)
What kinds of additional information concerning each of the states would help you to make a more informed decision about where you would like to live?
Do you think you will eventually move to one of the states you prefer? What are some of the forces that “push” people out of a home state? What are some “pull” factors that attract people to other states?
Class Preferences
Calculate the average ranking for each state by adding each student’s ranking for each state. Then divide each state’s total by the number of students in the class to get the average ranking for each state.
List states in order of preference. It might help to organize the data in a table like the one below.
State
Missouri
Arkansas
Wisconsin
Texas
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Average Preference Rating
4.5
4.2
3.8
3.5
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Have students create a class-preference map using data groupings similar to those they used for their personal-preference maps. Students may want to produce the preference map on an overhead transparency, using marking pens so that the entire class can see it. It could also be produced on a large-scale map for display on a bulletin board or classroom wall.
Help students analyze the class-preference map by asking the following questions:
Which states were rated high? Which were rated low? Were the residential preferences for California, Colorado, and Florida high or low? Why?
Identify regions that have similar preference values. What reasons can students give for these similarities?
What patterns, if any, are apparent on the map?
What generalizations can be made about the residential-preference patterns?
What factors affect the development of mental maps?
Concluding the Lesson
Ask students the following question: What is the effect of distance on residential preference and mental images of places? What conclusions can you draw about the residential-preference patterns of the class?
If it appears that students’ mental maps are based on unreliable data or on biases, suggest they research their top-rated and bottom-rated states to see if their impressions hold up.
Ask students to suggest some practical applications for the information they have produced. (For example, guidance counselors might seek more information on colleges or job opportunities in the highly rated states.)
Ask students how tourist bureaus might use this information to attract people to visit a state.
Extending the Lesson
Some of the questions and generalizations in this lesson may be restated in the form of hypotheses. Have students hypothesize about the relationship between residential preferences and per capita income in each state. Then have them consider recreational and cultural opportunities, crime rates, employment options, and living costs. To investigate the appeal of specific cities or metropolitan areas in the United States, students might enjoy looking at the Places Rated Almanac, by Rick Boyer and David Savageau (New York: Prentice Hall, 1989).
Expand the survey by asking students to poll other students, relatives, or friends.
Arrange for a class in another area of the country to complete this lesson, then exchange results.
Assessing Student Learning
Ask students to describe factors that affect the development of mental maps.
Additional Reading
Clay, Grady. Close-Up: How to Read the American City. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980.
Lynch, Kevin. The Image of the City. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1960.
This lesson from TC Tool Kit: A Resource for Teacher-Consultants, National Geographic Society, 1993.
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