Roots & Migrants: a user-centered design of an interactive mapping platform for teaching and learning historical population dynamics in the U.S.

<p>Interactive maps offer a powerful way to represent spatiotemporal processes such as population change by linking events across space and time but designing them for education requires balancing exploration with curriculum goals, addressing challenges of interpretation arising from uneven data coverage, and accommodating constraints such as limited instructional time and map literacy. Because many existing tools are not built around classroom workflows, they may fail to sustain inquiry or support effective instruction.

This article shows how a user-centered design (UCD) approach can improve educational mapping through the collaborative development of Roots & Migrants, a web-based map platform for teaching and learning about U.S. historical population dynamics. We implemented UCD through two participatory workshops with high school teachers and students, using feedback to iteratively design the system, and co-develop classroom lesson activities, drawing on collaborative geovisualization to support spatial knowledge construction.