Sasha's World Map Project

This past week, I've been helping my friend Sasha with the World Map Project at her school. Due to some schedule changes, my own camp was canceled this week at my school and my teachers allowed me to travel to Sasha's town. There are many different ways to paint a World Map, here is a link to my blog post about when I helped with my friend Alison's World Map project. This time, instead of painting on wallpaper, we used the Peace Corps world map manual and followed their guidelines for a grid method and painted the continents instead of every individual country - that way the map will stay more current, as more new countries are created (such as South Sudan). Here is a photo of our finished World Map!

Our map of the world, with handprints from the students and PCVs who helped us make it happen!

Sasha had help from a few other Peace Corps volunteers with her project, and the first step was to prime and paint the wall blue for the ocean. The day before camp started, Sasha measured out a 2m by 4m rectangle on a wall behind her school's sports gym. After measuring out the rectangle and painting it blue, Sasha, Margo and Samantha spent the first day of camp preparing the kids to draw grid-style by using the worksheets provided in the manual.

Samantha and Sasha teaching about how to draw maps using the grid technique.

Sasha and I talking about how we will paint the world by continents.

On the second day of camp, after practicing on the gridding worksheets once more, we went outside and drew a grid of over 1,500 squares that each measured 7cm by 7cm. This was not a simple task since most of the kids only brought little 6-in rulers, but we were able to get the grid drawn accurately with the help of some teachers' meter-sticks.

Measuring out squares on the grid.

Accuracy is important!

Me with Kate and Oksana.

Sasha starting the grid lines on the top of the map.

Working with the meter stick really helped keep the lines even and straight.

After drawing the grid, the next step for the third day of camp was to outline the continents in pencil. We only had about 10 students, so we divided them up into groups and assigned them each to sections of the map. According to the manual, there are 18 sections of the map, but the bottom 3 sections are mostly ocean and Antartica. The most difficult section of the map was the area where Europe, Asia, and Africa were all in the same square. We spent a lot of time on creating an accurate and recognizable contour for as much as the map as we could. we had the kids outline each continent in Sharpie permanent marker. We decided that outlining the continents would make painting go much easier since the basic shape would already be drawn clearly on the wall.

The students drew carefully on the wall, according  to the numbered squares in the grid.

Igor (an English teacher) working on finishing Asia while I am drawing the Peace Corps logo.

Sasha using blue paint to "edit" where the students accidentally outlined the Rio Grande instead of Texas haha.

On the fourth and last day of camp, we started out the day by mixing concentrated colors into white paint. The kids loved recycling their popsicle sticks and getting their hands a little bit dirty. We painted each continent a different color, and then outlined the continents in black paint. Here are a few photos of the progression of painting :)

We added concentrated color to white paint.

Mixing the paint.

Most of the kids outlined the continents again in paint anyways, before they painted the middle with larger brushes. Each kid had their own technique of painting, and since we only had 9 students, almost all of them got to paint their own continent!

Lilia painting Australia.

Kate outlining South America.

Washing their hands off in the water bucket.

After getting started painting, we were all really exciting that the map was actually taking shape on the wall. Asia, Europe and North America needed a lot of small details to be painted in carefully.

Sasha is so proud of her students!

Kate painting in Africa.

Vika painting carefully around North America.

Oksana helping Kate with South America.

Bogdan painting the Pacific Islands around Australia.

Yulia preferred to use her fingers to paint in details instead of a paintbrush, which was very interesting but turned out quite well... to each their own!

Yulia working on Europe.

Sergei, Lilia and Bogdan working together on the wall.

A few hours later, we had made a lot of progress on the map! All of the students were very proud of their work and their teachers were just as excited to have such a beautiful map on the wall.

Putting the finishing touches on Europe and Asia.

The map is almost finished!

After the map was finished, the kids all painted their hands and put their handprints on the wall next to the map. We took a few photos with the map and then called it a day!

Lilia and her purple hand.

Serhiy writing his name on the wall.

The trail of handprints on the right side of the map, plus the Peace Corps logo that I drew.

Sasha, Dan, Thomas and me.

Me and the world :)

Overall, this project was great and I was so glad to be able to help Sasha out with it at her school. I definitely want to do this project at my school in the fall, maybe I can show my teachers these photos and convince them to let me paint on the wall in the hallway by the English classrooms!