Last class, Rachel asked us to try to recall our first mapping memory… What was the first map we remember learning how to read. I don’t remember specifically learning about maps in school. I can vaguely remember learning about lines of longitude and latitude, and maybe even an exercise where we took a list of longitude and latitude points and drew the shape of a country.
From a very early age (remembering way back to the first house I lived in), I had a map of the world on the wall of my bedroom (or maybe it was just the United States of America). More than anything else, it was a decoration.
The first thing that came to my mind when Rachel brought up map memories in class was reading Lego instructions. I’m almost positive I was putting together Lego models before I went to school. These pictorial representations of the steps used to construct a model using Lego bricks were the first maps I encountered: a schematic on a page represented discrete components in a pile of parts I had.
After locating each of the pieces called for by the model in my big pile of Lego bricks, I oriented and attached them according to the assembly diagrams. By following the “map,” I was able to not only construct the model I was working on, but I also began to take structural ideas from the maps and incorporate them into my own creates.