A Point On The Map – Involving The People Attending A Lecture

WHAT
A simple activity in which people from the public attending a lecture draw a dot on a map.  The activity was intended to involve the people attending a lecture on a school project on protection of the historical cultural heritage – Three Maps of the Region of F. A. Špork.

The visitors could use a felt pen to mark where they live on a map of the surroundings with designated boundaries of the famous Baroque estates. They could then use a piece of string to measure the distance between the seat of the aristocracy and their residence and then read off an axis how long it would take to travel this distance in a Baroque coach, if they were invited to a banquet at the estate of Count F. A. Špork in Kuks. At the time of the Baroque, this was a world-famous spa and the entire estates formed a landscape modified according to Baroque composition. This information is no longer familiar to the population and we wanted to remind them of this. In the simple game with the dots, large and small visitors could actively view the exhibited map and found that history need not be boring.

WHERE
In the lecture hall of the Baroque building of the museum in a small city – Dvůr Králové n.L. – about 110 people from the city and its surroundings attended the lecture. An exhibition of maps, sketches, chronicles and ceramic pictures was installed in the hall and students’ films about Count F. A. Špork were shown.

WHEN
17:00 to 19:30, Tuesday, March 15, 2011

WHO
FACILITATORS:
Jarmila Tyrnerová - instructor at The Ceramics Studio of Jarmila Tyrnerová s.r.o., Kohoutov 74, 54401, Czech Republic , (www. keramiko.cz) 
The studio was a partner in the school project.
LEARNERS:
40 learners –men and women aged between 15 – 75 years. Some of the people attending the presentation were from the general public.

WHY
For learners
1. The opportunity to draw their dot in the exhibit – a map – at the place of their residence gave them a feeling of active participation in the project described at the presentation.
2. This is a graphic means of communication with other participants, an opportunity to compare where the others live and how far this is from the historical spa. Whether this was inside the former estates or not.
3. By marking his/her residence, the participant perceives the map differently and is able to imagine the actual landscape to which it corresponds. Although the exhibit included a number of other maps with designation of important points, the interest in this map was by far the greatest.
4. The people listening to the lecture can come into mutual contact next to the map, although they did not formerly know one another. They create a joint effort.
For facilitators
1. The facilitator verifies how the activity will be accepted by the people listening to the lecture, who were surprised by the event.
2. It allows him/her to establish personal contact with the visitors and to provide them with additional information on the values of the landscape and the sense of the entire project.

HOW
1. The boundaries of the historical estates of Count F. A. Špork at the time of the Baroque were drawn digitally into a contemporary map of the city in which the lecture was held (over a distance of 20 km).  The map was printed in pieces on an ordinary black-and-white printer and joined together from 24 pages of A4 format size.
2. Coloured felt pens were used to outline the boundaries of the historical estates and important points mentioned in the lecture.
2. A ribbon was pinned at the site of the former seat of the Count (now the village of Kuks, where the widely known Baroque hospital is located). The ribbon reached to the edge of the map and a picture of a Baroque coach was attached to the end.
3. A horizontal axis leading from the site of the seat was drawn into the map; here, the length of the string could be converted into the number of minutes required for a coach to travel to the home of the Count in Kuks.
4. Instructions were placed above the map. The visitor was to take a felt pen and make a dot at his/her place of residence and then use the string to measure this distance and read off the axis the time required in the Baroque to travel from his/her home to the banquet in Kuks.
5. Before the lecture, the facilitator actively encouraged the listeners to look at the map and mark where they lived. After the lecture, the listeners sought it out for themselves. The facilitator stood close by and answered questions.

VALUE FOR LEARNERS
1. Visitors to the lecture connected the information they heard with their own place of residence.
2. They learned about the residences of the other visitors and gained an opportunity to get acquainted in an informal way.
3. Next to the map, they asked the facilitator about questions related to the lecture that they did not have the courage to ask in front of the whole hall full of people.
4. Many of them enjoyed the relaxed form and it made a historical subject more accessible for them. They did not leave immediately after the end of the lecture, but looked at the other historical maps and exhibits that had not excited their interest beforehand.

VALUE FOR FACILITATORS
1. The facilitator verified that the activity can be used successfully to enliven a lecture for the public.
2. She found that the simplicity of the task was a great advantage. Drawing a dot at one’s place of residence was a simple task that could be managed by seniors, people with all kinds of education and older children. They participated willingly as they could not be criticized for the way they performed the task.
3. It was interesting that some of the visitors waited until the facilitator was not next to the map, and only then did they draw in their dot. On the other hand, some of them required invitation and encouragement.
4. It was an advantage that the map had already been used at a showing for students and that there were already some dots on it at the beginning of the activity.
5. The activity even attracted the attention of a journalist who was present and her photographs were used to illustrate the article on the lecture in the district newspaper.