Maps Made by Kids

As you experiment with these and other maps, you will get better and figuring out what it takes for a map to require 2 or 3 or more colors. No one has made a map that requires 5 colors so far. Why does this seem impossible? If you can find a simple way to explain why this is absolutely, positively, for certain and for sure impossible to do, you will be the first mathematician to do it. (Two computer scientists used a computer and found an unbelievably complicated explanation. )

The Maps...

Amanda's first map (7 regions)
Amanda's second map (9 regions)
Eric's map (at least a dozen regions and very tricky)
Jummy's map (35 regions)
Mike's first map (over 50 regions)
Mike's second map (16 regions)
Tara's map (over 60 regions and very squiggly)
Tyler's map (small but slick)

These maps were made by students in Mrs. Collins sixth grade class at Hillside Elementary School.

Send in your best maps

You can send us your most challenging maps to color and we will put them here for other people to try and color. If you have a World Wide Web server of your own, you can keep your maps there and send us a "pointer" to your maps that we will include here. If you send us maps, please draw them with black lines on a white background, and send them to us in "gif" format.