Cartography in Studying the Environment: Bilingual Practice Aiming at the Inclusion of Deaf Pupils - Maps for the Future Children Education and Internet - page 279

pupil told me that she had to draw everything “too small” in order to fit everything
in there, which gave me the impression that her sense of scale had already
improved.
In the second map (Fig. 22.8 ) drawn by another pupil, only a reference point, that
is another school was indicated, which is located in the same street where the school
they attend is. In this case, they are two children of the same age, but the presenting
levels of perception and spatial representation are quite different. We can even say
that while the previous representation has the characteristics of a map—locating the
places in two-dimensional plane, trying to place their way and streets (Marandola
and Oliveira 2007 )—the other one (Fig. 22.9 ) can be considered a design. In it, we
noticed the lack of perspective by portraying the street seen from above and the
other elements seen from the front (Almeida and Passini 1989 ).
De Paula ( 2010 ) warns that the problems regarding the mental maps are
concentrated, in part, at the time subsequent to the acquisition of material but
before data analysis. She says that both representations have their advantages and
disadvantages. A two-dimensional mental map is advisory because the individual
fits into a system of directions (right, left, front and back), but loses ground to the
possibility of developing related images, such as topography. The oblique repre-
sentation from a skyline, despite decreasing the clarity of spatial relationships
between Euclidean distances and directions, allows the individual to draw the
elements according to their size and shape. It is this perspective that we often see
the world. There is no restriction on the form of representation (De Paula 2010 ).
We also highlight that in his drawing, Gustavo was careful to indicate the room
number where we gathered to do the activities. He possibly showed his own body as
a reference for the location of objects, possibly not having gone through the process
of “decentering”, which according to Almeida and Passini ( 1989 ) is the passage of
child egocentrism to a more objective approach to reality through the construction
of conservation structures that allow children to have a thought more reversible.
This is because they begin to consider other elements for the spatial location and not
just their perception or intuition about the phenomena.
The third map was made by the same pupil who made drawing 4. It was clear that
he had difficulty in representing his perception. We are not saying what is 'right or
wrong', especially because the maps and drawings are mainly expressions of their
creativity, but we cannot deny the difficulty shown by this specific pupil. In general,
we can say that this activity with drawings and maps was really informative about
the characteristics and needs of the pupils.
22.3.3.3 Fieldwork in the School District
In order to aggregate the elements discussed in the previous practices, we decided to
do a fieldwork on the block and around the school. The area around the school has
serious problems of urban and environmental policy, such as unpaved and poorly