Map skills are crucial, even in today's ever changing, rapidly progressing world. All too often map skills are presented to students in a way that is dry, dull, and disconnected from their personal experiences and "real" lives. They fail to understand why legends and scales should matter to them! Rather than the old fashioned pencil and paper assessment to check for mastery of important map concepts like key, compass rose, coordinate grid, and symbols, this project allows students to synthesize their "learnings" in an authentic and meaningful way. It provides teachers an invaluable means of assessing true understanding and application of map skills, while at the same time sharpening students' problem solving abilities, organizational habits, and cooperative work skills. Included in this file is an engaging problem-based learning situation in which a "Disney executive" writes to your students requesting their help in developing a new piece of land that Disney has acquired for the Magic Kingdom. The students are asked to come up with a theme, attractions, and ultimately, a polished map to present it all. The finished product is an indicator of student mastery of the essential map skills concepts. Student task sheets are included to break the project down into manageable pieces. A rubric is included for teacher grading purposes.

Map Skills and Disney Performance Assessment is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.