‘Adopt Your Town’ is a workshop proposed for third-year high school pupils, to be conducted during the 2025/26 school year. The primary target of this initiative is not only to improve OpenStreetMap. This educational project aims to promote a sense of unity and cohesion among pupils and their local community.

Novice users of OpenStreetMap have a different perspective and range of interests to more seasoned users. Consequently, the likelihood of acquiring new data increases. Eventually, this work outlines how the OpenStreetMap environment’s tools can be used as Open Educational Resources (OERs).

The aim of this workshop is, firstly, to enhance participants’ cartography skills and, secondly, focusing on the local community, to highlight aspects that are often overlooked by mainstream mapping services.

Moreover, pupils have created tactile maps of the school campus to assist blind individuals. This was easily and efficiently done using the Touch Mapper tool.

The pupils were enthusiastic about the prospect of creating a map of their own town. They were surprised to discover a database of cartographic information similar to Wikipedia, and they became even more engaged when they realised that they could map a wide variety of subjects, such as trees, benches, and defibrillators. Furthermore, the workshop shifts the focus from commercial-oriented mapping to a more people-centred approach.

Each pupil has identified an area of interest and explored it. Some examined their immediate environment, while others mapped all the beaches in the area, and some even mapped trees and street lamps. Furthermore, some pupils have added house numbers, which in Italy are located on every door and not on every building.

The project was made possible because, in Italy, all third-year high school pupils are required to do a practical project supervised by their teacher or tutor.