If you're looking for a good introductory planning topic for young elementary school students, I recommend map reading. I recently spent an enjoyable afternoon at Kramer Elementary School in Oxford, Ohio, a small town of 18,937 in southwest Ohio, teaching kids in my daughter Lindsay's kindergarten class all about maps.

I brought a broad selection of maps with me. I began by explaining that maps help us find our way around and tell us how far things are from one another. Certain maps, I said, illustrate how high hills and mountains are. We talked about what the north arrow meant and whether everyone knew which directions north, south, east and west were. I had the class stand up to face north. We then discussed how we could measure distances using the map scale. I tacked a road map of Ohio on the wall and asked the five and six year-olds, to locate Oxford and large nearby Ohio cities like Dayon, Cincinnati and Columbus.

I showed the class maps from cities in foreign counties — The Hague, in Holland, and Paris (a Michelin street map depicting familiar monuments like the Eiffel Tower) and pointed out that all cities have similar maps.

Then, with a blank 1" = 500" base map of the city of Oxford, I asked the students to tell me the street where they lived. As they did, I found the general location of their home, placed a star there, and had them write their names next to it with a color felt-tipped marker. This provoked considerable interest and comment as each kindergartner stood up to write on the map. Some fledgling suburbanites even knew their subdivision's name. One boy, the son of a local auto dealer and City Council member, was quite proud that he not only know where his home was, but could also, he boldly announced to the class, pinpoint the location of his father's Chrysler dealership (he could!).

(My daughter, of course, also knew exactly where she lived, down to the lot. But bragging aside, while a parent's tendency in such cases is to call on one's child, I resisted the temptation - even though Lindsay kept vigorously waving her arm to get my attention. Instead, I gave each student, even the shy ones, a chance to demonstrate his or her knowledge. I always complimented or thanked them after they finished).

I next introduced the students to a composite 1" = 1200' aerial photograph of the entire City of Oxford, explaining how an airplane with a special camera takes such pictures and can only do it on clear days when the leaves are off the trees. We located Kramer Elementary School on the photograph. Increasing the map scale, I then showed the students a 1" = 100' aerial photograph enlargement of the school site and a matching topographic map with the footprint of the school building and school grounds. They were amazed by the detail of the enlargement and could even see, they eagerly pointed out, the play equipment behind the school.

"Let's see if we can match the measurement on the map with what's really outside," I said to the class. We decided that we would measure on the topographic map the width of the driveway entering the school site. Using an engineer's scale, we discovered that the driveway appeared to be about 28 feet wide. I let each student handle the triangular-shaped scale.

The entire class marched outdoors to test our measuring accuracy. We stretched a surveying tape across the driveway and -- sure enough -- it was just slightly larger than 28 feet wide.

"Not bad," I said to the class, and "close enough for governmental work."

Stuart Meck, FAICP, is principal investigator for the Growing Smart Project, a former President of the American Planning Association, and former Assistant Manager and planning director of Oxford, Ohio.