Students Find the World on a Playground

To say that students at Sycamore Elementary School got a big lesson in geography would be an understatement.

For two years, students in Tom Layton’s fifth- and sixth-grade classes have been painting gargantuan maps of the world and the United States on asphalt slabs on the Simi Valley school’s playground.

“I thought this would be a great exercise for the kids,” Layton said. “Not only are they learning a lot more about the world, but it’s also given them a real sense of accomplishment and pride.”

Last year, 33 students in Layton’s fifth-grade class started work on the 6,000-square-foot map of the United States, using about 27 gallons of pavement paint and 15 cans of colored spray paint to fill in the states. They are now filling in city names like Chicago, New York and Indianapolis.

In September, 36 students started on the 4,800-square-foot map of the world and are now putting on the finishing touches.

On Thursday, about a dozen students were out slathering baby blue paint around the chalk outlines of Earth’s seven continents. One group squatted on Europe to fill in the Mediterranean and North seas, while another student straddled the southern tip of South America to paint the islands of Tierra del Fuego.

“I think it’s all pretty cool,” 12-year-old Jack Murphy said. “We’ve all learned a lot, but I also think it’s a good thing for the other kids because they’ll be able to learn about the world without having to use their books.”

The students worked on the project about six hours a week, depending on the weather and their academic commitments. But, according to Sycamore Principal Sherry La Cost, the whole cartographic adventure is an important learning exercise, not just an excuse to get out of class.

“Not only did it give them a chance to learn more about the geography, but they also had to use their math skills to plot everything out and draw things to scale,” she said. “But what’s fantastic about the whole thing is that future students will be able to learn because of what our students are doing here today.”

La Cost said students have already incorporated the maps into games like dodge ball, with states like Colorado being safe zones.

Layton, who purchased all the materials for the project, estimated that the maps would be around for 10 years before the paint starts to fade.

“So far, they really seem to love it and they’re already learning even when they don’t mean to,” he said. “And that’s really the point.”