“Fina and the Maps” – a new children’s book with a difference

“Fina and the Maps” is a children’s book that aims to get children excited about collaborative cartography. The authors and translators hope that some of them will take part in the community project OpenStreetMap, which maps the world and makes the data available to everyone – similar to Wikipedia. The book is intended to promote open education and the development of collective knowledge and can be downloaded for free as an eBook (PDF). The recommended age range is 8 to 12 years.

The colorfully illustrated children’s book (“Fina e os mapas”) about cartography and collaborative maps was originally written by Pablo Sanxiao in Galician and Spanish. It has already been translated into English, French, Italian, Catalan and (Brazilian) Portuguese and is now also available in (Swiss) High German. It can be translated into other languages in the spirit of open education and is therefore also available in raw text (Markdown).

Here is a summary: Fina is a girl who loves technology and often visits her grandmother by bike to enjoy her exciting stories and delicious cookies. When the power goes out one day, her grandmother shows Fina old atlases and tells her how maps used to be drawn by hand, sparking Fina’s interest in cartography. Inspired, Fina discovers the OpenStreetMap project, starts entering places digitally with her grandmother and becomes a digital cartographer herself.

Share this! Website and download: https://finaeosmapas.ghandalf.org/

OpenSchoolMaps wins a DINAcon Award 2019

The DINAcon Awards were presented at the Swiss Conference for Digital Sustainability (DINAcon) in mid-October 2019. And the winner in the category Best Open Education Project is “OpenSchoolMaps”.

OpenSchoolMaps is a small project to promote open maps and map data for schools and self-learners. It is mainly a collection of teaching materials and information about outdoor mapping events, OpenStreetMap and Open Source software.

The idea and concept for OpenSchoolMaps came from Stefan Keller, professor at Eastern Switzerland University of Applied Sciences (OST) and member of the board of the Swiss OpenStreetMap Association. The decisive factor for the jury’s decision was that OpenSchoolMaps offers different possibilities for feedback and the open repository.

Browse the teaching materials yourself! Currently there are about 29 work and information sheets on the website. Here are some titles:

  • Using the OSM.org website in everyday life
  • Edit and use OpenStreetMap
  • Mapping the surroundings of yourself (outdoor mapping event)
  • Create a map with uMap
  • Introduction to QGIS and Geographic Information Systems

Logo OpenSchoolMaps.org
Click here for the OpenSchoolMaps website (see zip download in English).
Further information on the DINAcon Awards can be found on the DINAcon website (german).