Map Projections
This is the main reason map projections are needed when making a map of Earth.
What is that the Earth is round and maps are flat?
These early maps were made from clay.
What are Babylonian maps?
These maps helped sailors travel by showing coastlines and ports.
These maps often focus on this instead of distance.
This system combines maps with data to analyze patterns.
What is GIS?
This is the term for changes to size, shape, distance, or direction on a map.
What is distortion?
These Greek thinkers used math and coordinates to improve mapping.
Who are Eratosthenes and Ptolemy?
This was often missing from early European maps of the Americas.
What is the presence of Indigenous peoples?
This navigation method uses stars, winds, and ocean patterns.
What is Polynesian wayfinding?
This type of data collection uses satellites or drones.
What is remote sensing?
This projection keeps direction accurate and was widely used for navigation.
What is the Mercator projection?
These maps placed Jerusalem at the center of the world.
What are T-O maps?
This is one reason explorers trusted maps even when they were incomplete.
What is that they had no better information (or they relied on available knowledge)?
These carry knowledge and history in Coast Salish mapping.
What are place names?
This feature of GIS allows different types of information to be stacked on one map.
What are layers?
This projection is commonly used today because it balances size, shape, and distortion.
What is the Winkel Tripel projection?
This was a key feature of Greek mapping: using math to measure this about Earth.
What is the circumference of the Earth?
These resources were often highlighted on early maps to encourage exploration.
What are gold, land, or natural resources?
These carved wooden maps were used by Inuit to understand ocean currents and safe travel routes.
What are Inuit stick charts?
This is a real-world situation where digital maps help make important decisions.
What is disaster response, urban planning, or emergency services?
This projection breaks up oceans to better show land areas accuracy.
What is the Goode Homolosine projection?
These maps combined knowledge from many religions and cultures.
What are the Islamic Golden Age maps, or Al-Idrisi's maps?
This idea made it easier for Europeans to claim land shown on maps.
What is that the land appeared empty or unoccupied?
This believe about land distinguishes Indigenous mapping from Western ownership-based maps.
What is that land is relational?
This is one limitation of modern digital maps, even when they use advanced technology like satellites and GIS.
What is that they still depend on human choices (which may be inherently biased) about data?