Pirate Island

Activity One

A copymaster of a map is included at the end of these notes. Students attempting this activity will need experience with compass directions, particularly the eight points north, south, east, west, northeast, north-west, south-east, and south-west. This is best learned by using a compass to identify north on a map of the school. Ask students to follow an instruction, for example, “Walk 20 metres southwest”,
and draw where they have travelled on their map. After some practice, they can play The Pirate Game, hiding treasure somewhere on the school grounds and writing a brief set of instructions so another group of students can find it. As a check, you can get the students to mark their journey on the map. Retain the map as a model answer.
As it stands, Pirate Island contains no reference to scale. For an extension to this activity, you could introduce a scale of 1 centimetre : 1 kilometre and tell students to calculate the distance of the journey to find the treasure. They may wish to draw a map of their own with accompanying instructions.
Some discussion of land forms, such as lagoons, bays, peninsulas, and points, would be useful.

Answers to Activity

Activity One
Teacher to check
Activity Two
Answers will vary.