Tag Archives: mapping

Sep 6 2012

Why Map Projections Matter

This is a clip from the TV show West Wing (Season 2-Episode 16) where cartography plays a key role in the plot.  In this episode the fictitious (but still on Facebook) group named “the Organization of Cartographers for Social Justice” is campaigning to have the President officially endorse the Gall-Peters Projection in schools and denounce the Mercator projection.  The argument being that children will grow up thinking some places are not as important because they are minimized by the map projection.  While a bit comical, the cartographic debate is quite informative even if it was designed to appear as though the issue was trivial.

Questions to Ponder:  Why do map projections matter?  Is one global map projection inherently better than the rest?

Tags: Mapping, geospatial, video, visualization.

See on www.youtube.com

GoogleEarthStrangeMaps
Aug 17 2012

Strange Things in Google Maps

This site “Map of Strange” is dedicated to showing strange things that can be seen in Google Maps. Displayed here is a beach that I loved to go to growing up in San Diego.  Coronado is written in large stones on this part of the beach right next to the red roof of the famous Hotel Del Corondo.

See on Scoop.it – Geography Education  See on www.mapofstrange.com

Mar 26 2012

10 Places You’re Not Allowed to See on Google Maps

Via Scoop.it – Geography Education

Google maps brings the world to your desktop – well, most of it, anyway. Here are 10 locations that governments and other entities have blurred or removed from satellite photos.

A user of geospatial technologies is not free to explore all places of the Earth with equal levels of specificity. Why?  Where? How come?

Via mashable.com

Mar 24 2012

A Cartographic Rendering of Panem.

Via Scoop.it – Geography Education

The Hunger Games fascination is at a high-water mark, and this dystopian Young Adult novel is set in a futuristic, post-apocalyptic, North America. While much of what was written isn’t geographically accurate, the capital and the districts that serve as its hinterland have numerous clues that connect with the current (and actual) geography of North America. Why not try to map it? While not an “accurate” project, this can be a fun way to infuse geography into an English class or vice versa. What would your map of Panem look like? How come?

Via aimmyarrowshigh.livejournal.com

Mar 16 2012

GPS technology maps land rights for Africa’s ‘forest people’

Via Scoop.it – Geography Education

In the lush rainforests of Africa’s Congo Basin, hundreds of thousands of indigenous people live as hunter gatherers, depending on the forest’s natural resources for their survival.

The “Mapping for Rights” program trains people in the Congo to map the land they live on using GPS and other geospatial technologies.  This can assist the to produce documents to politically protect their land from encroachment and preserve their access to the forest.  Globalization can blur many of the modern/traditional narratives as the world becomes interconnected in complex ways.

Via edition.cnn.com