Maps are fundamental to much literature, especially in the work of Tolkien. Islands of the Imagination is a course in which each student builds their own fictional world, starting with the geography: mountains, rivers, climate. Then we think about the flora and fauna. Then we imagine the humans or other conscious beings that occupy and settle the land. We think about their level of technology and development. Then we consider the people's culture and language. When the map is done and the setting is clear, we begin to tell stories set in this world.
Not only is this fun, but before we're done we've learned something about earth science, history in the long sense of stages of development, as well as writing and sharing our literature.
Coding is a club lead by RPI computer science student Rachel King. Starting in the program Eclipse and writing in Javascript, students can start programming and coding and then go off and work in many different directions and see what they can do.
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