Commemorating the 30th Anniversary of the Barbara Petchenik Children’s Map Competition and exploring directions for the future

Abstract. The thirty-year anniversary of the Barbara Petchenik Children’s Map Competition, created by the International Cartographic Association (ICA) in 1993, will be celebrated at the 31st International Cartographic Conference (ICC 2023) in South Africa. It was initiated under the leadership of Professor D. R. Fraser Taylor, then ICA President, and its aim was to promote creative graphic cartographic representation of the world by children. A commemorative UNICEF poster was produced to support the initiative, and over past decades, Brazil has engaged in intensive school mapping work with children and researchers, some of this presented in commemorate books, including Dra. Carla de Sena’s new book “Children’s Maps: The History of the Lívia de Oliveira Competition” (2021). From 2005, ICA in collaboration with prestigious publishers (Esri Press, SinoMaps, National Geographic Institute of Spain) produced the "Children Map the World" series, which currently counts with six volumes. Submitted drawings are also used in other periodical publications as journals and books published by international and national organizations in different countries. The competition maps are sent to Carleton University Library where they are processed for digital and physical archiving and all the entries are then made publicly available at - https://childrensmaps.library.carleton.ca/. This special anniversary presents as a pivotal moment to commemorate, advance and expand the reach and import of children mapping their worlds. This presentation will review the developments in the Barbara Petchenik Childrens Map Competition over the years, and discuss some exciting new developments and directions for the future.