By Roan Hollander
In early December, the New Haven Environmental History Project and Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute hosted “Teaching with Maps: New Haven Past and Present.” The event featured talks from New Haven teachers Ian Dudley and Steve Staysniak, and Yale Professor William Rankin.
Paul Sabin delivering welcome remarks.
Yale History Professor Paul Sabin, who is leading the New Haven Environmental History Project, welcomed everyone to the event. Sabin provided an overview of the project, which was launched in 2024 to develop teaching resources about the history of environmental change in New Haven.
Kirke Elsass introducing the speakers.
Kirke Elsass, who leads historical research and curriculum development for the New Haven Environmental History Project, discussed the importance of maps as an engaging learning resource. Elsass explained that maps speak to students in a different way than text, and this is a powerful way to engage students when teaching place-based lessons.
Ian Dudley explaining his students’ mapping projects.
Ian Dudley, a second- and third-grade teacher at Cold Spring School, described how he engages students in the tangible aspects of mapping by using Legos, photos, and other materials. This form of mapping encourages students to think about the physical history of place, but also to use their imagination to visualize the past, future, and fantasy worlds.
Watch the timelapse video of Dudley’s class building an enormous and complex Lego map of Fair Haven, titled “Everchanging Peninsula,” here.
Steve Staysniak explaining his use of maps in English classes.
Steve Staysniak, ninth grade teacher at Metropolitan Business Academy, created a mapping project with his students that was inspired by earlier Peoples’ Histories of The Hill and Dixwell created by students at Metropolitan. Called “A People’s Atlas of New Haven,” the project included student maps of various places around New Haven, each with a different focus. Students mapped colloquial names of New Haven neighborhoods, the prevalence of smoke shops in the city, the history of Eugenics in New Haven, personal places of interest, and more.
Yale Professor William Rankin closing out the event.
Professor William Rankin gave the final talk of the event, discussing the history of mapping social phenomena and his new book, “Radical Cartography: How Changing Our Maps Can Change the World.” Rankin explained that every map presents its own “Theory of Geography” that conceptualizes the world we live in, and argued that maps today should break out of homogenization and challenge the use of ‘jigsaw-puzzle’ boundaries. The mapping process instead should be one of curiosity, creativity, and empathy, which makes maps a critical tool for classrooms today.
Learn more about the New Haven Environmental History Project here.
