Remember the Pins are for the scout doing their best to learn about the sport or academic activity, and by putting the new techniques to practice with fellow scouts, in their community, or working with an adult.

1. Make a three-dimensional model of an imaginary place. Include five different landforms, such as mountains, valleys, lakes, deltas, rivers, buttes, plateaus, basins, and plains.

2. List 10 cities around the world. Calculate the time it is in each city when it is noon in your town.

3. Find the company's location on the wrapper or label of 10 products used in your home, such as food, clothing, toys, and appliances. Use a world map or atlas to find each location.

4. On a map, trace the routes of some famous explorers. Show the map to your den or family.

5. On a United States or world map, mark where your family members and ancestors were born.

6. Keep a map record of the travels of your favorite professional sports team for one month.

7. Read a book (fiction or nonfiction) in which geography plays an important part.

8. Take part in a geography bee or fair in your pack, school, or community.

9. Choose a country in the world and make a travel poster for it.

10. Play a geography-based board game or computer game. Tell an adult some facts you learned about a place that was part of the game.

11. Draw or make a map of your state. Include rivers, mountain ranges, state parks, and cities. Include a key or legend of map symbols.

Elements of a Good Map

• Title, author, and date. The title can tell you whether the map will give the information for which you are looking. The date and author will give you clues as to the accuracy of the map (i.e., an old map may not be very up-to-date).

• Scale. Scale is the system that reduces the land and oceans to sizes that fit on paper. On maps of large areas, the scale is usually measured in miles (or kilometers) per inch (or centimeter). Some maps might measure small areas in feet per inch.

• Directions. A map should show the cardinal (main) directions of north, south, east, and west. Most maps have the north at the top, but it is wise to check the compass rose to be sure.

• Key or legend. Maps usually use colors or symbols to represent features, such as roads, buildings, parks, lakes, rivers, or mountains. The only color most cartographers agree about is using blue for water features.

• Projection. A three-dimensional globe is the most accurate map of the earth. Cartographers must cut, stretch, and distort some parts of the earth to get it to appear flat on paper. Some of the these projections are better than others. To see this effect, compare the size of Greenland as represented on a globe and on a flat map.

Finding Longitude and Latitude

On most maps you will see lines that run east and west parallel to the equator, and other lines that run north and south between the North and South Poles. The east-west lines (called parallels because they stay the same distance apart) are lines of latitude. They measure position north or south of the earth's equator. The lines that connect the poles are lines of longitude. They are never parallel because their distance apart varies. Also called meridians, they measure position east or west of the prime meridian, which passes through Greenwich, England.

Example: Imagine that your are listening to a weather report about a hurricane. Many times, weather reporters give the coordinates of the hurricane so that people can follow the storm's movements on their map at home. If the coordinates for a hurricane were given as 18 degrees north latitude and 77 degrees west longitude, you could find the hurricane on a map. Find the parallel of latitude marked 18 degrees north of the equator, and the line of longitude marked 7 degrees west of Greenwich, and follow the two lines until they meet. These coordinates would put the storm near Kingston, Jamaica, in the Caribbean Sea. Try this for yourself on a map or globe.

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