George W. Wiggers

Originally published in the REACHEast newsletter, for a homeschool support group, in November 2008.

The 125 maps on Uncle Josh's Outline Maps CD-ROM offer the homeschooler or a co-op class many uses. The CD lists a table of contents, general instructions, contemporary world maps followed by United States maps, and a bonus map section. The brief general instructions supply ideas for using these maps in history, geography, literature, and science.

The World Map section has a world map, continent and regional maps, some individual nation maps, a Bible lands map with modern national boundaries, and three ancient maps for Egypt, Greece, and Rome. The United States section offers maps of the U.S. with or without borders, regional maps, and individual state maps. The bonus section includes Canadian provinces and territories; shaded relief maps of the continents and the world; and a map called “Stan and his Sisters,” a map of the former Soviet Republics as they are today.

Most of the maps have longitude and latitude lines running through the large bodies of water to help one place locations on a map. All bodies of water are shaded, and the major rivers are marked with light lines. A legend for scale is also on each map.

We used the U.S. maps with "Simply Stated," a literature-based study of the U.S. for elementary students. I plan to use the United States map with borders to record the number of electoral votes each presidential candidate gets this fall.
Uncle Josh's maps can be used for historical and modern geography.… (mere)