Map Skills Project

Gary, who was spending his vacation on a small island, wrote a letter to his sister, Anna. He wanted to tell her about a bike trip he had taken. Anna could not make heads or tails out of the description of her brother’s trip. Help Anna by drawing a map of the island, and its landmarks. Use the information that Gary provided in his letter as you create the map. The map should include a compass rose, legend, labels, a title, and color. You may draw it by hand on paper or create it in Paint. Make a rough sketch before you start the final map. After you have created the map, reread the letter to make sure your map matches the information in the letter. Here is the letter:

Dear Anna,

We are having a great time. The town where we are staying is in the center of the island. There is road from the town that leads to a deserted village on the shore of the island. Yesterday we decided to go there on our bikes. On the way out of town we came to a fork in the road by a tall tree. We went to the right. As you can guess, the road to the village was the one on the left. Anyway we were lost.

After a while we came to a four-way intersection. We were not sure if we should keep going straight ahead, turn left, or turn right. We decided to turn right and soon came to a forest. (Later we found out that the road to left leads to a nice beach. Going straight ahead would have taken us to some cliffs overlooking the ocean.)

Soon we came to another fork in the road and decided to go left. (We should have turned right. That would have taken us back to town.) We ended up at the boat dock on the other side of the island. By then we were tired, so we wanted to go back to town. We knew there was a direct road from the boat dock to town, but we missed it. Instead we ended up going along the shore of the island all the way to the deserted village. So we visited the village after all, but we sure went the long way.

What I don’t understand is how we got to the village from the dock and never crossed any other roads. After all, the village and the dock are almost on opposite ends of the island.

Oh well, we are thinking about camping in the forest tomorrow night. I’ll be home before you know it.

Your brother,

Gary