This was the class I hadn't planned on or researched, but added last minute after staff orientation just because I badly wanted to do it myself, and it was apparent that deep down the campers had a similar intuition, and we sort of all worked through it together in a couple of dramatic and active sessions of map-drawing-in-the-field.
Many campers got really serious about making a correct map of the Common Ground campus, and about accurately depicting direction and perspective. The heart of the class was the "treasure", a simple stone or stick they painted at the start of class, to be hidden in a spot that held importance to them. One by one I took each camper a little ways out from the group to hide their treasure. It was an intense, suspenseful, adventurous and meaningful 60 seconds for each one.
We used large sheets of manilla paper that are soft, speckled yellow, and distressed looking. Some of the campers went further and distressed them more with dirt and crumpling. All were rolled and tied with string at the end, to be proper pirate treasure maps.
