The Community Map for Children

• Main Authors: Chang Li-Ling, 張麗玲
• Other Authors: Thzeng Chi-Shiung
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2002
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/91838070318722254095

碩士 === 國立雲林科技大學 === 視覺傳達設計系碩士班 === 90 === Through map analysis, it allows us to be able to see the expression of the earth. The “community map”, in the same way, conveys various information of the community. It can be culture, leisure, and industry, depending on how it was designed to meet the needs. In recent years, people’s awareness toward community has been increasing dramatically. They have also put a lot of attention on what is called “nativist education”. Consequently, map has become an important conjunction between the community awareness and the education. For this reason, this research is designed to integrate both community and education’s perspective to understand children’s cognition toward their living environment. The first step is to research how the community was described in the existing “community map”, especially those whose focus is on the area between living house and school. The intention is to understand children’s concept toward the community space; how they react to and employ the “land mark” and “route” in such environment; and how they construct themselves with the environment through the element of space. Next is to examine the cognitive maps drawn by children, and to examine the difference between children and the youth’s cognition toward the environment. Finally, compare the findings of these three researches. It is found that Taiwan’s community maps can be divided by their way of presentation into four categories: (1) Community Location (2) Community Scope (3) Community Street (4) Community Guide. It is obvious that, base on current findings, “land mark” and “route” has provided a very good basis and clues for children to exercise in the complex environment. It is also discovered that most of the children use landmarks and street names as basic elements to construct their cognition of the whole environment space. In which, landmark is used as the key element, and streets in second. Children, who live in villages and towns, have their cognition of landmark based on human and natural ecology. On the other hand, the city children have it based on the hardware and their living experience. Therefore, the designers should stress more on how to display the landmark while designing the community for children. Most of the safety-maps implemented by schools focus on the issues of traffic and safety dead space. However, the statistic of this research shows, there is a need to mark also the empty house which village children are afraid of; the resident community which the city children don’t like; and the ocean and mudflows and landslides which the remote districts children are concern about. From children’s cognition map, we have found that their favorite places are parking lots (for city children), lanes in front of their houses, and the little paths around school. Their second favorite places are Internet café, video arcades and comic house. These places should be included in the “Community’s Leisure Map” as well.