A new children’s atlas written and edited by Kingsley Hurlington, Canadian Studies Ph.D. candidate and research associate of the School of Education and Professional Learning at Trent University aims to help primary school students become familiar with maps and basic map-reading skills.

Called the Oxford Atlas 1 Project, the colourfully-illustrated atlas was conceived through a relationship between Mr. Hurlington and Oxford University Press and developed into a full-scale learning text that is designed to meet the reading levels and the learning styles of children from kindergarten to grade three. The project partners plan to complete two more atlases for children in grades 4 to 6 as well as grades 7 to 8 in the near future.

“It was probably some of the hardest writing I’ve ever done,” expresses Mr. Hurlington on the challenges of the project. “At the end of the day the complexity of writing for an eight-year old and working hard under real space restrictions, such as 50 words per page, makes it a very difficult task.”

The material covered in Oxford Atlas 1 Project covers the entire world while focusing mainly on the geography of Canada and its provinces. The atlas gives children the opportunity to begin exploring their own space and their own world in a spatial and graphical way, through its many maps and pictures.

Mr. Hurlington attributes his success in completing the project to his academic interests and achievements in the fields of geography and education. Having completed his undergrad at Trent University in consecutive education for Computer Science and Geography, and a Master’s in Spatial Data Handling and Computerized Mapping Analysis at the University of Waterloo, Mr. Hurlington’s experience and credentials make him a perfect candidate for being a large contributor to a project of this calibre.

Outside of his work on this new series of atlases, Mr. Hurlington has been involved in many secondary school educational activities and has been actively involved with a number of geography textbook projects for high school aged students. He is now working to complete his Ph.D. in Canadian Studies at Trent University and is an associate researcher for the School of Education and Professional Learning where he is researching with Professors Deborah Berrill and Mark Skinner on the resiliency of adolescent children in Canada’s rural communities.