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Ari Raider's Training Materials · Extreme Earth · Training Center 1 of 6
Map Symbols & Keys
The Fern Grotto has swallowed its own markers — and every marker is a map symbol. Match them to their meanings and the grotto lays itself out.
What you're training for
In the Fern Grotto, the wayfinding markers are buried under green. They stand back up for whoever can read a map key cold. Train here first; prove it in the simulation.
The science
- A map's key (or legend) explains its symbols — no key, no map.
- The color code is nearly universal: blue for water, green for forest and plants, brown contour lines for ground of equal height.
- Point symbols mark features: a small black triangle is a mountain peak.
- With a key, a scale and a compass rose, a stranger can navigate land they've never seen — that's the whole power of a map.
Teach it today — no prep
Map your room. Students map the classroom using four invented symbols — and a key that explains them. Then partners swap maps and have to find a hidden sticker using only the other person's map. A map that can't be followed gets revised, which is the actual work of cartography.
Trained and ready? Prove it at Stop 1 — the Fern Grotto. Free, no logins, progress saved on the device.
Enter the Realm at Stop 1Resources in this training center
Worksheets, reading passages, flashcards and printables for this lesson are being added — new resources land here first. Get one email a month when they do, or browse the whole free library.
The hands-on half: the Extreme Earth Adventure Kit puts six real specimens, six Digs, six Gemlings and the Realm map in your students' hands — $19.99, or $15 a student for classrooms.
More Extreme Earth training
Map Symbols · Earth's Spheres · Contour Lines · Atmosphere Layers · Layers & Magnetism · Earth's Records · Enter the Adventure →