Tuesday, 19 June 2007

"That map's not right!"...

was a comment from one of my Year 10 students today... So here you are Jonathan!

Well, if you've ever tried (as my Yr7s do each September) to peel an orange in one piece and then flatten the peel, without any gaps, you will know that it is impossible! And, the world being spherical, it is also impossible to represent the world 100% accurately on a flat piece of paper. If you keep the shape of the continents accurate, you distort their size... If you keep the size of the continents accurate, you distort their shape... And so on.

Because world maps have been used by lots of different people for lots of different purposes over time, different factors are important to them, and so we have ended up with several map projections.

You can find out more, and explore some of the main projections on the excellent Mapping our World site from Oxfam.


While we're here, this is another interesting site which allows you to explore a variety of "alternative" projections...


Clouds tomorrow Josh!!

3 comments:

Alan Parkinson said...

Well done on reaching 200. It's easy to start a blog, but not so easy to maintain it!

Miss Ellis said...

Thank you! You did predict when I started that I would have plenty to say!!

Miss Ellis said...

And thank you for all the ideas and stories I've "borrowed" from you!