MAPLE HEIGHTS, Ohio — Sixth-grade honor students at Milkovich found errors in a map they use in class and now are having them fixed
At Milkovich Middle School, Julie Hogan had no plans on teaching about outdated maps.
“This was defiantly not something in the curriculum,” she said.
Hogan teaches social studies and was teaching students about cardinal directions.
“Could you imagine trying to drive to your location using this map?” she said, while holding up a giant paper map.
Earlier in the school year, she was using that same map to teach longitude and latitude.
“There was no GPS, and this is how we did it,” she said.
Without todays technology to constantly update maps, they often become outdated.
“We realized that the school’s were wrong, and we wanted to fix that because we wouldn’t want people to go to the wrong places,” said sixth-grader Michaél Davis.
Once the students knew the map was outdated they got to work to fix it, making sure to mark the correct longitude and latitude.
“We sent off a business letter that the students wrote and [the map company] responded very favorably and said they would change the map,” Hogan said.
These students are using their voice to make a difference in their community.
“I feel like I was making a difference because so that everyone knows, like, the right placements and where they should be going,” sixth grader Avan Coleman said.
Amani Jordan also feels the same.
“It made me feel proud,” Jordan said. “It made me feel like I was making a difference for once.”
