Maps

On of the most useful skills a person can gain from Scouting is the ability to read and use maps. This skill is not only used when hiking, for example, but when going to a new place in the car. In fact, if I use a sat-nav to take me to a new place, I always like to check on the map before hand to see where I’m going.

Maps in the UK are produced in the UK by the Ordinance Survey and they have a wide range of accurate maps available at various scales. One thing they’ve recently announced is their OS Open Space project. This allows people to use the OS map data to include on their websites or create their own application using map data.

What this means in practice terms is that I can now put OS map information on my Group’s website, for example, to show where a camp site is.

This looks to be an interesting use of mapping information and it will be fascinating to see what people come up with.