STEAM Lessons
Project 3. Creating Topography Maps...
When I taught in Virginia the 4th Grade was studying the watershed tables and the major rivers. In art we are looking at some of these rivers start and the path they take to the sea. The Blue Ridge Mountains and the Shenandoah Valley run through Virginia. In art we created an artist-eye version of a
topographical map.
After looking at real topographical maps we created our own mountains. Some of the students named their mountains and added in rivers and lakes.
This is an actual topographical map of the Shenandoah Valley area.
Using our creative minds and your artist's eye, students painted their topographical maps in brighter more vibrant colors than a regular topographical map.
My sketchbook and a Virginia Watershed map found on the Virginia State web page, as someone from Middle Georgia I am Middle Georgia it is all level and flat as a pancake.
A finished piece.
Another idea for painting the circles is Value Change.
Select one color and keep adding white to it until you get to the top.
You can try this project using value changes in each ring.
Or you can paint it using wild and random colors.
Which leads us to the work of Miguel Chevalier
Miguel Chevalier "Magic Carpet" work reminded us of the colorful topographic maps we created.
This led us to create a Map/Magic Carpet-inspired art out of Foam Sheets.
You can bulk order these foam sheets from the Dollar Tree. The link to order is HERE
The kids has a blast with this hands-on project
They loved this part of the project!
An alternative to the foam paper which can get costly is bright neon paper.
Start from the bottom and build up your mountain.
Trace around your last piece before your glue it.
Then cut it out just slightly smaller than the tracing.
Another approach to this project is to add lifters between each color. We use cut cardboard strips.
