MENTAL MAPS

Home / MENTAL MAPS

Recommended age 8-18 years
Place: Indoors
Time acquired: 1-2 hours

Material/tools Paper and pen
Purpose: Investigating movement patterns and safety issues
Where in the Process: Pre-study

ABOUT THE METHOD

One way of working with maps is to ask children to draw their own maps. These maps are called ‘mental maps’ because they reflect the child’s experience of reality and focus on places that are important to the child. These maps can be usefully made inside the classroom as it is about expressing their inner mental map and the actual physical environment is less interesting.

To investigate both movement flows and safety issues, our tip is to split the method into two parts. If needed, they can be done in two different sessions, otherwise one after the other at the same time.

PREPARATIONS

White paper and coloured pencils.

HOW TO DO IT

Movement flows
The instructions you give to the children:

List all the places you visit often (home, school, friends, shop, leisure activities etc) and try to think about where they are in relation to each other. Draw markings for the different places on your white paper.
Once you have decided on the positions, draw the places and describe what they are.
Then draw lines between the locations for the routes you take to get to them. Write how you get to the location (bike, car or walk?). Mark the roads you most often take by making them wider with double lines.

Safety issues
The instructions you give to the children:

Draw warning triangles in places that you feel are unsafe. It can be in one of the places you drew, along the road, or a new place you put on the map. Put a number in the triangle.
Write the same number on the side of the paper and comment on why you think this particular place feels unsafe. 
Now draw stars in the places where you feel most comfortable and safe. Put a number in the star.
Write the same number on the side of the paper and comment on why you think this particular place feels so good.

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

Talk to the children, as much as you can during the session, about what they are thinking. Use their own notebook to record their thoughts and to remember anything valuable that comes up.

End the sessions by letting the children show and tell each other about their maps. Do you find that some places are recognised as unsafe by several children? Or is there a big difference between what different individuals think and how they move around?

THE METHOD AS PART OF THE DESIGN PROCESS

Mental maps are a good start to a feasibility study in a development process. As a leader, you may also want to use the method to teach children and young people about urban planning and democracy – in which case we can recommend the City of Malmö’s MIN PLATS (My Place) method guide.

Ref: mental maps

A cross-cultural study (Blades et al., 1998) involving six countries with different cultural backgrounds showed that spatial competence appears naturally and without help from adults or formal training and that it does this in all cultures. Ottosson (1987) suggests that children should be encouraged to think of maps not in symbolic terms, but rather as miniature worlds that takes their starting point in the topographic knowledge the children already possess, since this better meets how they think spatially.

Tip box

Want to teach children and young people about urban planning and democracy? Check out the City of Malmö’s involvement method My Place