TeenMaptivists evolved from a group of students who had taken AP Human Geography during their freshman year and during their junior year when Covid-19 hit they were looking for ways to help others from their own homes. One of those students was my daughter, who saw first hand my participation in evening MapAlongs with OSM US. She realized that she and her classmates could do MapAlongs on Zoom as well so they could earn community service hours for the National Honors Society. When students returned to school and contact was still very limited, she asked several of the National Honor Society members if they wanted to do MapAlongs to earn community service hours and they all replied unanimously, “YES!”
I reached out to Greg and asked if he and his students wanted to join in on the mapping fun, and shortly after we had our first MapAlong on zoom! Our students loved mapping and they wanted to reach out to more schools and get more students mapping, so we built a webpage and began to strategize about how we could get more students involved in mapping in OSM. Greg and I began to create a list of geography professionals who would be great speakers for the students. The students created the name, TeenMaptivists, a logo, and began to create a website with short videos to help tell others about TeenMaptivists.
During the first MapAlong, Dr. Lee Schwartz , the Geographer of the United States, was the guest speaker and over 100 mappers joined in for the first MapAlong! After the first MapAlong, we held monthly MapAlongs and students from all over the United States joined in on the mapping fun. Each month a new guest speaker was invited to speak to students in the beginning of the MapAlong and then students would do mapping after the guest speaker’s presentation. Month after month students were inspired by the guest speakers so much that several students decided to pursue a degree in geography.
As TeenMaptivists grows it is exciting to see how more students are becoming interested in mapping in OSM. Time and time again students are excited to be part of the OSM community because they feel like they are doing meaningful work that is helping make the world a better place.
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