PRESQUE ISLE — Fifth-graders at Pine Street Elementary School are becoming experts in U.S. geography and culture.

They can walk across the country on their playground map and know how many states or big rivers or lakes they must cross to get from Maine to their grandparents’ house or to Disney World or to the home stadium of their favorite sports team.

While creation of the map is the project of fifth-graders this year with help from teachers Rena Kearney, Sheila Cariani and Dawn Jandreau, the idea originated in the mind of a fifth-grader a year ago.

Grayson Page suggested making a map when the school principal asked pupils for ideas which would improve the school. Page moved on to the sixth grade, but his father, Jim Page, is helping the idea become reality.

Working with the pupils on the 50 states, Page felt it was important that they understand scale and, for instance, where Alaska really was located in the world.

“So we put it up the coast from Washington and Oregon,” said Page, an assistant professor in the education department at the University of Maine at Presque Isle. “Then we made little dots way off the coast of California for the Hawaiian Islands.”

When the paint brushes begin to color in cultural features, trails and waterways next spring, their size and relationship to other states will become more evident, advisers say.

“The actual physical walking across the country, turning and looking around them, gives them a greater understanding of location and place than looking in a book,” said Page.

Each pupil is assigned a segment of the map to paint, such as the capitals or special interests of a state.

The pupils began the project by developing map skills in that unit of the social studies book and with instruction in compass use for direction at the Francis Malcolm Science Center in Easton.

Understanding how and when the states came together to create a whole country has sharpened pupils’ interest in history.

Their studies now include the paths taken by Spanish, English, Dutch or French explorers, and the country’s settlement from East to West.

To form the states and Great Lakes, outlines were taken from a map in a class book and enlarged by an overhead projector onto drawing paper. The pieces were put in place on the hot top. Small feet or rocks held them in place as spray paint created the borders between each state.

Two local stores, S.W. Collins and Steego Auto Parts, donated paint.

The pupils may find the map isn’t big enough for all they learned about their country through the winter.