Purpose

This is a handy exercise to get the delegates to know each other better. Each person reveals details of their life and the results are drawn on a map. The exercise can be extended to explore many areas.

Objective

Draw a geographical map of participants’ life using several data layers.

What You Need

• A large white board or an area you can draw on.
• Colour pens.
• Optional: You can use a map of the world and use colour pins.

Setup

• Draw the map of the world or optionally hang the map.
• Ask the delegates, one by one, to explain which geographical place they consider home.
• For each person place a dot, or their initials on the map.
• Next, ask for place of birth, and this time use a different colour to mark dots or initials on the map.
• Next, ask for place of birth of each delegate’s mother and add this set to the map.
• You can carry on adding new data layers as you ask delegates to reveal more information about themselves. Examples of other data layers are:
  • Your ideal holiday destination
  • The furthest you have travelled
  • Your most favourite country other than your home country
  • Your most favourite city in your country, other than your home
  • Your most favourite city in the world, other than your home
  • The place you like to live your retirement in

Timing

Explaining the Exercise: 2 minutes.

Activity: 10 minutes

Group Feedback: 0 minutes. 

Discussion

Are there any patterns in the map? Are there areas with lots of marks? Are there areas that are effectively empty? What does this suggest about the delegates?