Field+Trip+Maps+Exhibit+Worksheet+1.

Maps: Finding Our Place in the World November 2, 2007—January 27, 2008

 * WORKSHEET**


 * YOUR TASKS:**
 * 1) **Identify all components found in 2 maps in the exhibit.**
 * 2) **Answer at least one question from each of the 7 areas of the exhibit. You’ll find the questions marked with bullet points throughout this sheet.**
 * 3) **Complete a Venn diagram** Select two maps to analyze using a Venn diagram. How are the two world views similar? What is unique to each? What was known about the world at the time each was drawn? What distortions and/or inaccuracies does each have? (//Venn diagrams are a powerful way to graphically organize information. The Venn Diagram is made up of two or more overlapping circles. It is often used in mathematics to show relationships between sets. In language arts instruction, Venn Diagrams are useful for examining similarities and differences in characters, stories, poems, etc. This activity enables students to organize similarities and differences visually.)//

http://www.usm.maine.edu/maps/lessons/nr04d.htm http://www.enchantedlearning.com/geography/glossary/projections.shtml http://sio.midco.net/dansmapstamps/portolan.htm http://www.fieldmuseum.org/exhibits/maps_tempexhib.htm
 * Sources**


 * 1) **Read through “Reading and Completing Maps” prior to identifying the components of 2 maps in the exhibit.**

There are five specific skills to teach students to acquire (read and comprehend) information from maps and globes. The map and globe skills are: C. Orienting and finding directions – Understanding directionality is basic to understanding world views. Look for maps oriented with a direction other than North at the top. D. Using scale and finding distance – Scale is the ability to compare map distance to Earth distance. In the exhibition you will find many examples of large and small scale maps. E. Selecting media – The ability to select a map at the appropriate scale, using the appropriate projection and the appropriate theme is important to accurate understandings about Earth. The best representation of Earth is a globe; all maps contain distortion of some type. Various maps and materials to construct maps in this exhibition will help students understand the multiple uses of maps and that “one size does not fit all.”
 * Reading and Completing Maps**
 * 1) Using symbols – Symbols convey information about locations. In this exhibition, you and your students will find many variations of symbology from iconic to abstract.
 * 2) Finding location – Reference systems (like street addresses, zip codes, and room numbers) and various grid systems (latitude and longitude and Township/Range) have been developed to locate places. Maps provides historic and modern methods of defining and locating places using traditional and digital technologies.
 * Identify all components of 2 maps in the exhibit.**


 * • What is the descriptive title that identifies the topic (and a date if the map depicts a time in history)?**


 * • What direction is given, whether a directional arrow or use of a grid system?**


 * • What is the scale? Small, large?**


 * • What legend and symbols are used? Is there a cartouche?** Cartouche is the decorative enclosure on a map. In general terms, the cartouche is any decoration on the map itself that is self contained.


 * • What distortions are there, if any?**


 * • Who is the cartographer (whoever made the map)?**


 * • What date was the map constructed?**


 * • Who or what is the source of information?**


 * • What type of neatline (a frame or border) is used and terrestrial regions in context (not floating in space)?**
 * 2.** **PART TWO – THE EXHIBIT**

FUN FACTS
 * The nearly 300-pound “Mauritius Atlas” stirred sensation on its only other exhibition in the United States, the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
 * The road network of the Holy Roman Empire is the oldest surviving printed road map. When fully unrolled, the road from Edo (Tokyo) to Kyoto scroll reaches 60 feet and shows the 300-mile length of the Road.
 * The Mediterranean Sea chart is the oldest surviving sea chart and represents an astonishing breakthrough in the history of cartography by presenting navigational information in visual form. Captain James Cook tested his chronometer on his second and third voyages; despite the constant rolling of the ship, it never fluctuated more than eight seconds in a day.
 * The mariner’s astrolabe on display sank with the treasure ship Nuestra Senora de Atocha. It lay lost off the Florida coast for over 350 years until the wreck was rediscovered in 1985.
 * The town plan of Nippur bears the oldest known town plan drawn to scale, depicting Nippur some 2500 years ago.
 * Rosselli’s World Map is the first modern map to show the entire globe.
 * John Mitchell’s “Red Line” Map has been called the most important map in American history, used by British and American delegates to negotiate the peace ending the American Revolution.
 * //The Land of Make Believe// was submitted to the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair competition and won an award in the Children’s Literature Division.

Maps address three basic questions: Where am I? Where do I want to go? How do I get there? And virtually all wayfinding maps organize the geographical information in one of two ways: The itinerary map shows a single route or corridor or movement, the network map describes an entire system of routes or pathways.
 * Section One: Finding Our Way**

Ø Find and identify examples of different maps in the exhibition: itinerary map, portolan chart, scroll map, network map, navigation map. (//Portolan maps were generated by mariners who plotted coastlines along constant compass bearings. Even before the discovery of America they provided some of the most reliable information about geography. The portolan did not take into account the curvature of the earth, so it was a misleading document for crossing an ocean. It was useful for navigation in smaller bodies of water such as the Mediterranean or the Red Sea. The oldest dates back to 1296.)//

Ø Compare the symbols used on “Road from Edo to Kyoto” to “Road Network of Japan During the Edo Period.” How are the maps similar and different?

How do you define “world?” Is it limited to the planet Earth or does it include spiritual realms? Because the definition varies among cultures and across time, so do maps of the world. While modern ones typically show the grid of latitude and longitude, more traditional maps may blend the geographical and mythical. To make sense of this variety, a useful place to begin is at a map’s center and edges. These do more than structure the map, they hint at how the cartographer understood the world. The center often represents the focal point of the cartographer’s world. The edges often convey what is less important or less understood, such as the contours of a distant land. Ø Find a Mercator projection map of the world and compare to a Peterson or Robinson projection. Identify distortions that are evident in the Mercator map. **Projections**: Maps are called projections because map-makers have to project a 3-D surface onto a 2-D map. A projection is a representation of one thing onto another, such as a curved 3-Dimensional surface (like the Earth) onto a flat 2-Dimensional map. There are 3 major types of projections: cylindrical, conic, and azimuthal (flat). o Since a map is 2-dimensional representation of a 3-dimensional world, compromises must be made in accuracy (some information must be lost when one dimension is ignored). Different maps differ in the relative accuracy of the depiction of the area, the shapes of objects, actual distances, and compass direction. Maps that focus on maintaining one feature (like preserving distance) must distort other features (like area, shape and compass directions). o Maps that accurately reflect area are often called equal-area maps (an example is the Albers equal-area conic map). Maps that maintain the shape of objects are called conformal. Maps that correctly show the distance between points are often called equi-distant maps (note that the shortest distance between two points on a map is generally not a straight line. but a curve). Navigational maps need accurate compass directions maintained on the map (like the Mercator map).
 * Section Two: Mapping the World**

Ø Find and identify one map that is based on a religious viewpoint. What religion underlies its creation? Who drew the first modern map and what makes it “modern?” What is the most common orientation (direction at the top) of religious maps? Of modern maps?

Ø What does a cosmological globe/map show? How are the “//Medieval Christian World Map//” and “Earth from Space” image alike?

Zoom in on the world to a place that is important to you, perhaps a neighborhood or worship site. Such familiar geographies may be easy to navigate without a map, from memory. Still an astounding array of local maps exists. They commemorate a sacred place, satisfy our geographical curiosity, help us defend or manage territory, or document a place for others. But, who the map is intended for is also significant. A cartographer may use different symbols for cultural insiders or may intentionally distort features for an outsider.
 * Section Three: Mapping Places**

Ø Find and make a list of at least ten different materials used to create maps, name at least one map that has an aerial perspective and one that has an oblique (bird’s eye view perspective), describe at least three reasons maps are made, find a map for each orientation (N, S, E, W is at the top of the map).

Ø Analyze one oblique map in the exhibition and make a list of cultural features. //Maps are not passive objects.// They are active instruments in the historical events that are important to us as individuals, as communities, and as nations. In fact, maps shaped the United States. They inspired journeys across the Atlantic and recorded the exploration of America. Maps encouraged migration across the continent and defined the patterns of settlement. In times of war, maps helped plan battles, and when peace came, they were tools for diplomacy. The maps in this gallery reveal what people knew, what they thought they knew, what they hoped for, and sometimes, what they feared.
 * Section Four: Mapping History**

Ø Describe three changes to Chicago since the “Bird’s Eye View of Chicago” was published. What is the point of origin in the city of Chicago? How does one orient him/herself here?

Ø Analyze the“Gulf of Mexico” and “Tenochtitlan.” How did these maps encourage further exploration of North America.

Ø How does “The Pacific War Zone during World War II” present a bias and how is it misleading?


 * Section Five: Visualizing Nature and Society**
 * //Maps help us//** **//visualize//** the aspects of our world that we cannot see with our unaided eyes. These may be physical—such as the vertical layers of rock under our feet—or social—the ethnic diversity of Chicago. As our quest for answers about Earth and its people has turned up new data, cartographers have developed new ways to visualize it. The maps in this gallery all broke new ground. They exploded the graphic language of maps, using symbols and color in novel ways to link geography and data. They pushed the selective nature of maps to the extreme, isolating the themes under study. They revealed something unexpected or unknown about our world, triggering major shifts in scientific thought or solving practical problems.

You will encounter maps that revolutionized branches of science from epidemiology to plate tectonics; maps that illuminated issues in linguistics and sociology; and a beautiful drawing by Leonardo da Vinci that was the first map to use color to show changes in a landscape’s elevation—a technique centuries ahead of its time.

Ø Examine multiple ways that elevation can be shown on maps: contour lines (topological maps), small pictorial representations of mountains, shaded relief (lines, graying), and color.

Ø Analyze the map “Wage and Ethnicity on Chicago’s Near West Side.” Have them summarize what they discover in terms of wages and ethnicities. If you were Jane Addams, what services would you offer to this neighborhood?

//All maps are in some sense a product of the cartographer’s imagination////.// It requires leaps of creativity to conceptualize the world as a sphere, to discern geological formations, and to mold a territory into a nation. But some maps push the limits of imagination, representing realms that exist only in our minds. In this gallery you will encounter several such fantastical maps created for literary works. They are a clever twist on the mapmaking process: instead of using imagination to visualize physical places, these maps use practical techniques to represent imaginary places.
 * Section Six: Mapping the Imaginary**

Ø Find the answers to the following questions: Can you name at least 5 nursery rhymes represented in //The Land of Make Believe//? Who lives in the //Hundred Acre Wood//? How many “Oz” books are there? What genre of literature is //Gulliver’s Travels//?

Ø Select one map and identify the book, the author, and describe the map in cartographic terms (use of symbols, pictorial, cartographic features, etc.). Discuss how the maps give a sense of authenticity to the story and whether it helps with the understanding and/or enjoyment of the story.

//In glove compartments or on office walls////,// on computer screens, in film scenes, or on the mobile phones attached to our hips, we live with maps. Although individual maps had been made for thousands of years, the invention of map printing in the fifteenth century opened up a new world of uses for maps. Printing launched maps beyond the governing elites. Today digital technologies deliver maps to millions.
 * Section Seven: Living with Maps**

Ø Name at least 3 interesting, high-tech innovations that involve mapping which are being developed. The world’s first jigsaw puzzle was of which continent?

Ø Identify your favorite interactive experience. Why was it interesting?


 * Examine the “London during the Great Exhibition of 1851” map. Discuss the materials used to create this map and why its construction was appropriate for its time and purpose.