The activity of this week was about the problem of the distortions of our real world. As teachers, we will have to show the reality to our students, so we should be conscious of the distortions that are constantly are in it.
We had to do a treasure hunt about cartographic projections: Robinson projection, Mercator projection and Azimuthal projection.
For the exposition, I had prepared some information of the map projections, which I had planned explain with a mural, in which we had put pictures of the three maps. To explaining an evidence of distortions in the maps, we had to choose two countries which we had to compare in the different projections. The countries that we chose were Italy, in Europe, and Madagascar in Africa.
In the Robinson projection; even if we notice that Madagascar is bigger than Italy, we cannot see its real size, almost twice bigger than Italy!
In the Mercator projection; we can see that even with the difference between their shapes, Italy is bigger! The place occupied by Italy, is higher than this of Madagascar.
And in the Azhimuthal projection, the centre is placed on the equator, this projection is focused in Africa: Italy and Madagascar are in the same position, with their almost accurate proportions.
In group decided that the projection we would use as an educational resource was the AZIMUTHAL. This is the one that is nearer to reality. As teachers, we could show in the same course, different versions, focused in the continent we talk about. We think, moreover, that this will show more or less the real shape of the Earth: round. We are not used to use it, but there is always a time to begin and innovate!
Also I had thinked to talk about media distortions and some examples of them, such as distortions of graphical information which are represented in incorrect graphics.
But last monday in class, I had to do the presentation with two others stars, Marina from powerteachers group, and Fran from platypusoyer group.
Each group had their own presentation with the two countries to compare. So, we decided that we could explain all the comparisons, exposing the six countries, whose distortions were different in the three main maps projections.
We talked about the media distortions and how the owners of this media distort easily our vision of the reality making it look like their interests want.
Also in our exposition, we explained an example of another trasure hunt, which is an interesting way to do activities like identifying goals, defining terms and locating information or facts. It also encourages students using Internet to search of different questions.
Furthermore, in my group, we found an interesting resource for apply with the children in the class related with the practice of this week which apply for maps is that one:
I also found some interesting articles about the distortions of reality in cartographic projections and videogames:
I hope you find them appealing.
Indeed, this kind of presentation, where we combined all the information that the three groups had found, is a good way to know the work and the work's strategies of others groups. So, I am happy of have worked with others stars, because we knew well how to put in common our information and I think that we could do a good exposition talking about the main information of each group.
Also I have to say that at first, I was a little bit afraid of the presentation, but when I knew that I would do it with my classmates, I was more relaxed because I had not to talk all the time and it is more comfortable.
Good job!!, only an important thing, please convert the url on "clickable" links using the hiperlink option in the menu, AND include evidences of the exposition, resources, etc.
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