Child Commission.

[Slylok]

I'm a middle school teacher and mapping newb. I would love to take a stab at this. I think it would be most fun to actually have a child "commission" the art, if that ends up being possible.

I'm not sure what type of class you teach, but if it's along the lines of art, history, science, creative writing or something where this could be applied then you may be in a perfect spot to offer some extra credit for students who want to be creative, learn to communicate thier ideas to an artist, and see their creations come to life. Or they might want to make it themselves.

For this to work we'd have to have enough cartographer's willing to set aside time and commit to the challenge for each child that wants to participate. Then you would take that list of committed cartographers and assign them to a student or let them go through the process of choosing the one they want. After that they would communicate their vision to their cartographer by starting a thread on this site. (This would be a great way to see how other cartographers handle their workflow.) The thread continues until the student gives their stamp of approval for the map or the time expires.

Potential problems:
- internet access for the kids. (are school computers and scanners available for use?)
- parents may be skeptical of online communication with strangers. (communication should take place on a public forum like this one.)
- not enough cartographers for students who want to participate or vice versa.
- a child or cartographer may give up mid contest for whatever reason.

It has a lot of moving parts, but if it could be pulled off i think it would be really fun and a great learning experience for students/ future cartographers/ artists.
Just thought i'd throw this out there since it popped into my head.