TASK 3

On this week we had to work the Treasure Hunter concept. For as It wasn´t an easy task and we had to work hard to finally succed. Here we are going to write all of the information of the presentation and also the information about the threen map projection that we had to search for it.

Presentation about Iceland and Thainland:

·     ICELAND

MERCATOR: in this projection the more distorted lands are the ones that are more far away from the Ecuador. Iceland is far from the ecuador so is going to be more destroyed, it is represented bigger than it is in reality.

ROBINSON:  in this projection distortions are smaller near to the central meridian and the equator, so that Iceland is seemed to reality, because is close to central meridian.

AZIMUTHAL: is a projection in which the Earth globe rest on a flat surface. It produces a circular map with a chosen point at its center. The distortion of iceland depends on how far is from the center of the map, because as far the countries are from the center more distorted they are. If we take the North Pole as the reference point Iceland won

·     THAILAND:

MERCATOR: This country is near the ecuador so that it is represented more similar to the real dimensions of the country

ROBINSON: This country although is far from central meridian, is close to equator, so its distortion is smaller.

AZIMUTHAL: is a projection in which the Earth globe rest on a flat surface. It produces a circular map with a chosen point at its center. The distortion of Thailand depends on how far is from the center of the map, because as far the countries are from the center more distorted they are. If we take the North Pole as the reference point, Thailand will be very distorted because It is far from the North Pole.

In the presentation we also had to answer some questions:

What could be the best projection for being used in a classroom?

We think that the best projection map that we can use in a classroom is the Robinson projection because after all we have read about it, we think that is the most similar to the reality and we must teach our students the things how they really are. He did a better balance of size and shape of high-latitude lands tan in Mercator.

Robinson's projection was created by the aim to find a good consensus to the problem of showing easily the globe complete in a flat image.

This is uses Google´s Atlas and adopted for National Geographic´s world in 1988

A specific media that could determine/distort the vision of students about something

SKIN COLOUR PENCIL

Here in Spain, this media determines the students’ vision about what colour our skin is supposed to be.

Because of this distortion, Caucasian children will think that the true skin colour is like the pencil one instead of realizing that there are many other tones of skin. Besides, an African child (as an example) will never think that this colour is like the skin one.

In order to mitigate this effect and to avoid any racial discrimination or conflict, we should use another name to refer to this colour in our class.

Example of Treasure Hunt

The treasure hunt is an activity that has a dominant topic with a  list of questions about that topic that we are working and finally the big question, a fundamental part of this task, supported by some links where the students can enter and search the answer to the clues and questions. The purpose of this activity, is to have more knowledge, (in an interactive way) about one topic that the teacher want that their students improve on it.

After all the examples of treasure hunt that we have seen on the internet, we have chosen this one, its topic is the solar system, including the list of questions, each links and finally the big question.

LIFE ON ANOTHER PLANET

“Media are not neutral.”

The fact that they make us see a certain vision of the world it does that we grow believing things that actually are not.This could create prejudices and make ourselves believe what they want that we believe, depriving us of freedom to create our own vision on the things.

In this activity we can observe previously said because some projection maps make ourselves see countries bigger than they are And by this way, subconsciously, we give them more importance, in spite of the fact that it is not like that.

Media tries to create a distorted vision of the reality, to the whim of those who dominate it , with the aim that we all see the things of the same way

Here you have also a link to our presentation

This week, during our classmates’ presentations, we had to write what elements facilitated our attention or made it difficult.

The majority of our classmates did really good and original performances. In addition, they talked fluent, so we could understand them easier. Although there were some colleagues that couldn’t finish their presentations because of time, they gave us interesting information.

Some of the presentations were not so remarkable, but the information was clear and well explained. Nevertheless, there were two performances really original, interesting, and also funny.

We really enjoyed our classmates’ presentations, so that we think that they made a good job. 

Apart from the presentetion that we did in class we had to look for some information about the different map projection that we had been working with:

Projections – Defining terms and recognizing patterns

A globe is the only “perfect” representation of the Earth’s surface. All maps are distorted in four major ways. The four ways maps are distorted is by the distance, direction, shape, and area of the landmasses being mapped. In order to make maps, projections mustbe made, and different projections require different distortions. For each projection listed below, complete the chart for the correct information.

1. ROBINSON PROJECTION MAP

PURPOSE:
It was specifically created in an attempt to find a good compromise to the problem of readily showing the whole globe as a flat image.

TYPES OF DISTORTION:

The Robinson projection has the four different distortions: shape, direction, distance and area.

WHICH AREAS ARE MOST DISTORTED?

Not free of distortion anywhere but the severe distortion near outer meridians at high latitudes seems less objectionable than in other pseudocylindrical projection

THERE IS MORE THAN ONE VERSION?
There are some pseudocylindrical projections that have got similar characteristics as Robinson projection, these are projections of Agnese, Wagner and Patterson among others.

PROBLEMS:
The Robinson projection is unlike most other projections in that it is not constructed by a mathematical formula used to transform coordinates systems. It is instead constructed by reference to a table of transformation parameters for meridians and parallels with an interpolation for locations between those given in the table. The table was created empirically to achieve a pleasing effect when the entire world is displayed.

SOCIO-CULTURAL IMPLICATIONS OF USING IT AS A LEARNING RESOURCE?

It was created for a company, so it had got comercial issues. Robinson makes the world "look right", better balance of size and shape of high-latitude lands tan in Mercator.

2. MERCATOR PROJECTION MAP

PURPOSE:
It was to represent the Earth into a flat surface by making an idealized model of it as an inflatable balloon inserted into a cylinder.

TYPES OF DISTORTION:
The type of distortion in this projection is in the area, because it exaggerate the size of the land that is far from the Ecuador.

WHICH AREAS ARE MOST DISTORTED?

The areas that are more distorted are the ones that are far away from the ecuador. For example, Groenland is bigger than Africa and in real life is in the other way round.

THERE IS MORE THAN ONE VERSION?

There are three versions of this projection: oblique mercator, universal mercator and transversal mercator.

PROBLEMS?

The main problem is the distortion of the land which create a wrong vision of the reality. Other problem is that It is not possible to differentiate the dimensions of the parallels, and also the meridians do not  join to the poles, because the poles are not represented in the map.

SOCIO-CULTURAL IMPLICATIONS OF USING IT AS A LEARNING RESOURCE?

It became the standard map projection in the XVII century for nautical purposes. It was a revolution for the navigation

3. AZIMUTHAL PROJECTION MAP

PURPOSE:
To obtain the vision that would be achieved already is from the center of the Earth or from a point of the exterior space.

TYPES OF DISTORTION:

Distortion of the areas

Distortion of the angles

WHICH AREAS ARE MOST DISTORTED?

The areas of most distortion are the zones most removed from the center of the plane.

THERE IS MORE THAN ONE VERSION?

The variants of the azimuthal projection are:

Equidistant projection: it supports the scale of the distances with regard to the center of the map. This projection is not equivalent and is not similar. With this projection, a map of the entire world is a circle with the projection center in the center of the map.

Orthographic projection:It consists of representing geometric elements or volumes in a plane, by means of orthogonal projection. It's aspect is that of a photography of the Earth. There exist several forms of orthographic projection, depending on the position of the plane:

-The polar one. The points of reference are the poles.

-The equatorial one. The point of reference is in the equator.

-The oblique one, which can be in any other point fewer 2 previous ones.

Stereographic projection: It is a graphical system of representation in which the surface of a sphere is projected on a plane pencils of lines that happen for a point, or area. The most typical feature is that the scale increases as we move away from the center.

Gnomonic projection: Through this projection, every point of a sphere is connected from his center by a line until intersect in a tangent plane to the sphere.

PROBLEMS?

It does not allow to represent the whole Earth, for what as it is the tangent one can be: polar, equatorial or oblique.In addition it distorts the regions as you move away from the center of the plane.

SOCIO-CULTURAL IMPLICATIONS OF USING IT AS A LEARNING RESOURCE?

Azimuthal created a map projection that could be used as a learning resource in order to show children the differences about the size of different country and how they change depending on the point of view. This can influence children's opinion about life and they can appreciate that things are not like they think.



This week our teacher encouraged us to look for this hashtag and investigate what was happening with it:

#WMCP17

It is a collaborative project of georeferencing and mobile technology, promoted by the LaceNet team  ( is an association of educational professional of the town of Bages and they are interested in the educative use of telematic) and with the support of the participating centers, as well as the collaboration of the UPC.The protagonists of this project are the students of the secondary schools, with the support of their teachers.

Moving around a big city is not an easy task for those who live in the outskirts. That is why the LaceNet network has organized an activity for young people. This activity has the aim of helping the young people locating any point of  the city by combining the classic tool , such as maps, and the latest technologies such as internet mobile, geolocation, QR codes etc, also this activity will be done in cooperative groups

This project is a good motivation for the students because of the using of the innovative tools to get all the knowledge about the city without feeling insecure in any moment.

The use of apps allows the student to communicate easily with their teachers, while they are doing the task