It’s GIrls’ Day! What sketch maps show about girls’ spatial knowledge

Abstract

This paper describes the analysis of sketch maps from girls who participated in the Girls’ Day annual event in Germany. The event caters to girls from Grades 7 – 10 as an opportunity to experience various jobs that might interest them in the future, typically within the STEM-disciplines. One of the performed activities was asking the girls who participated to draw a sketch map of an area they are familiar with. We are interested in finding out how girls externalize the environment they were told to draw. The activity also helps us understand how they organize their environmental knowledge through sketch maps. This descriptive work deviates from gender comparison of map-making by focusing only on girls. This paper allows us to understand differences of girls’ cognitive abilities based on what they have drawn on the map. The results showed that girls draw map ranging from egocentric pictorial representation with few details to survey structured map. More than 40% of the girls have included landmarks and streets outside the region of interest showing a more global view of the area. Landmarks frequently drawn showed visual, structural and cognitive characteristics. This study contributes to research related to better understanding of the cognitive abilities of young adults, particularly girls.