What’s at the center of your worldview? ©2007 Worldwide Hock

Mapping your beliefs… Make sure you have a sheet of blank paper and a pen or dark pencil. Write your name and nationality clearly at the top. Find a spot in the room where your work cannot be seen.

Mapping your beliefs… You have ten minutes to draw, as accurately and completely as you can, a map of the world. Don’t waste time telling yourself you can’t do it. Just do your best and discover what you carry (or don’t carry) in your mind as your picture of the world. You will not be marked or otherwise judged on the accuracy of the results. When you have finished, be prepared to show the results to others in your class.

Does your physical image of the world affect your perception of the cultures therein?

Cartographers for Social Equality

Your Maps What part of the world is centered in your map? What parts of the world have you drawn in greatest detail? What parts of the world have you drawn in little detail or even left out?

Mercator Projection

Find and Compare Your job is to find as many different world maps as you can in Mountain Range and observe points of interest and comparison with regards to these maps. Come back prepared to discuss how the world is presented here at MRHS. Ultimately answer this: What implications does our vision of how the world “looks” have on our knowledge and understanding of the world in which we “really” live?

Map Quest Things to consider… What is selected to be shown? Do human beings have a greater interest, in general, in the land or in the water? Do our maps show the bias of our species? Do the maps represent the physical geography of the world or its human political divisions? What is emphasized in each case? What is in the centre—or both in the centre and at the top? What is artificially enlarged by the particular projection chosen? Compare the other maps to the Peters equal area projection, which chooses to distort shapes in order to preserve correct relative size?

Map Quest Things to consider… Which map features are found in the world and which ones are humanly created? Do lines of latitude and longitude “really” exist? Do national borders exist in the world if seen from space? Do north, south, east and west exist in nature? How do north and south differ in this way from east and west? Does north have to be on top? How do we separate west from east, since all points are west of something and east of something else? What political and economic ideas come with “north” and “south” and “east” and “west.”? In what context and how are the map images used? Maps are made, in general, for a practical purpose, whether to show relative position, to navigate, or to represent a connection between the physical world and an idea (population growth, spread of AIDS, incidence of hunger, distribution of the world’s languages or religions, and so forth). But how is the map used.

What did you discover?

Concluding Questions Which world map is most familiar to you? If “knowledge is power,” then how does map knowledge represent a graphic example of this notion? How are maps traditionally used? Is it possible to reconcile the differences inherent in studying maps that represent varying and often clashing world views?

Concluding Thought In attempting to understand, evaluate, reject or reconcile multiple views, we are taking on possibly the most interesting and significant challenge of living in an international, intercultural world.

What are the implications of the cartography “problem” on you as a learner? Does your physical view or concept of the world affect what and how you know?

Welcome to the “Center”!