The Final Take-Home Exam for Geography 222 is intended to bring together several broad issues we have discussed in The Power of Maps.

The suggested amount you should write on each question assumes double spacing and 12 point type.

Different Maps of Home

Maps are not mere 'images' of the human and natural environment. Indeed, they are selective and only partial representations, shaped by the human and social context within which the maps were created. We spend much of the semester learning about how maps cannot show everything and must be selective and must be partial representations. On the other hand, maps allow us to see things in a unique manner, and learn about places and what happens in them in a way other media (words, numbers, etc.) don't allow. For example, the maps of US Census data hopefully revealed things about your home in a manner that is both interesting and useful and would be difficult to communicate in any other way.

The key to understanding maps is that they always involve tradeoffs - we put up with shape or area distortions to be able to see the entire Earth all at once, for example.

Recall the following quote from Monmonier's book:

"As historian of cartography Brian Harley has noted, government maps have for centuries been ideological statements rather than fully objective, 'value free' scientific representations of geographic reality. Harley observed that governments practice two forms of cartographic censorship - a censorship of secrecy to serve military defense and censorship of silence to enforce or reinforce social and political values. This second, more subtile form of cartographic censorship usually occurs as silences - as features or conditions ignored. Hence basic maps of most cities show streets, landmark structures, elevations, parks, churches, and large museums - but not dangerous intersections, impoverished neighborhoods, high crime areas, and other zones of danger and misery that could be accommodated without sacrificing information about infrastructure and terrain. By omitting politically threatening or aesthetically unattractive aspects of geographic reality, and by focusing on the interest of civil engineers, geologists, public administrators, and land developers, or topographic 'base maps' are hardly basic to the concerns of public health and safety officials, social workers, and citizens rightfully concerned about the well-being of themselves and others. In this sense, cartographic silences are indeed a form of geographic disinformation." (Monmonier, How to Lie with Maps, p. 122)

One way we can grasp the complex nature of maps is to critically examine and compare different maps of the same place. It is vital to 'ground-truth' such maps: compare what they show to what we know about the actual places the maps represent.

In this exercise you will 'ground-truth' several different maps of the same place - your home. Sometimes maps help you learn new things about a place - things you didn't know despite having lived experience in the place. Other times maps are limiting - not showing things you know are important about a particular place, or showing them in such a way that is limiting or even deceptive. Regarding Monmonier's quote above, you should also be aware that there are many things - toxic waste sites, health statistics, etc., that are either difficult or impossible to find on maps.

You will use multiple maps of your 'home' in this exercise (almost all of which you already created):

• In Exercise 1: Mental Mapping you created a mental map of the area around the OWU campus. You will create a new mental map in this exercise of the area around your 'home.'

• In Exercise 2: Maps, GIS, and the Internet you ordered a US Geologic Survey 1:24,000 Topographic map of the area around your home. This USGS topo map is one type of cartographic map - a detailed reference map - showing a diversity of human and natural features in a relatively limited area.

• In Exercise 2 you also found two Map Snapshots (static digital maps) of your home and saved these maps.

• In Exercise 2 you also used three different Map Generators and Browsers (Excite, Maps on Us, and Eartha Maps) and generated maps from around your home.

• In Exercise 3: Geographic Data and Software on the WWW you located and saved a satellite or aerial photograph of the area around your home using the Terraserver WWW site.

• In Exercise 5: Census Atlas of Home you created a series of ten thematic maps of your home, based on 2000 US Census data.

For your final exam, you will compare, contrast, and comment on these different maps of the 'same' place: the area around your home. The main point is to get some sense of how maps represent the world and to 'ground truth' these different representations given your personal, lived experiences around your home. Please include copies of all maps with your exam (xerox copies are fine; a xerox of the area around your home on the topo map is fine also). Please answer the following questions:

1) U S Geologic Survey Topographic Map: write one page:

Take a careful look at your USGS topographic map of home. What is or was your initial reaction to the map of this area you are familiar with? Most of you are not familiar with USGS topo maps, at least not familiar with such maps of your 'home' area, so this is the first time you are seeing your 'home' represented this way on a topo map. Write up three things that struck you about the map: what it shows, what it doesn't show, its accuracy, and its advantages and disadvantages as a particular representation of your home.

2) What Topographic Maps Show and Don't Show: write two pages:

Refer to the quote by Monmonier above and Chapter 5 in Monmonier's How to Lie with Maps where he discusses the human and social context of such large scale topographic maps and some of ways in which seemingly 'objective' USGS topographic maps are shaped by their human and social context. As with any map, the topo map of your home is a selective and partial representation of the actual place. For example, should information about toxic waste and other human-created environmental hazards be included on these USGS maps?

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has recently made such information available via their EnviroMapper WWW site:

• Go to the EnviroMapper WWW site.

• At the bottom of the page select Enter ZIP Code and enter the ZIP code of your home, then hit Zoom to Chosen Geography

• A map of various toxic environmental information is generated: symbols show the location of toxic water dischargers, superfund toxic waste sites, hazardous waste storage sites, and toxic emissions. You may have to zoom out a bit, or in a bit, to get a decent map.

• Save a copy of this map and include it with this evaluation

• To find out more information about specific toxic sites:
  • select Identify from the lower right corner of the screen

  • select the correct layer (eg., superfund) by clicking on the circular button on the left of the map which corresponds to the site you are interested in.

  • click on the location of the site on the map

  • the name of the site shows up below the page; click on the name to get details about the toxic source.

Write one page on your reaction to this map of the toxic geography of your home. Any surprises? What sense of your home do you get from looking at this particular (toxic) aspect of 'reality' mapped out? Are these toxic sites things you were aware of?

Write one page in reaction to the quote at the beginning of this exercise. Are USGS Topographic maps ideological because of their silences about certain important aspects of our environment? Should toxic sites be noted on this map series? Why aren't they? As the paper USGS maps are replaced by digital versions, should the kind of toxic information at the EPA site be part of the new digital versions of USGS topographic maps? Who might oppose including such information on such basic detailed maps of the US? Who might support it?

3) Satellite and Air Photos: write one page:

Compare the USGS topo map, your Map Generator maps, and the satellite or aerial photograph of your home generated in Exercise 3: Geographic Data and Software on the WWW using the Terraserver.com site. Refer back to the course lecture where we discussed images versus maps (such as Maps and Human Understanding). As an image of 'reality' this representation of your home is obviously the best representation of home, or is it? Discuss three limitations of aerial images based on your comparison of your image of home to your other more selective and simplified and abstract maps of your home. Why might maps have some advantages over such unsimplified, unabstract, and non-selective images? What advantages do aerial images have?

4) Census Atlas of Home: write two pages:

In Exercise 5: Census Atlas of Home you created a series of ten thematic maps of the same area shown on your USGS topographic map. Did any of these maps reveal something about your 'home' area that you did not know? Were there human patterns (shown by the particular data set you mapped) that surprised you? Write two pages summarizing your interpretations of the different maps (from Lab 5) and comment on what this kind of thematic map of your home reveals, what it doesn't show, and possible limitations of the data that the Census provides for you. Compare this representation of your home to your USGS topo map, your Map Generator maps, and the satellite or aerial photographs of your home: what aspect of 'reality' are the Census maps good at portraying that the other maps cannot accomplish?

5) Consider the following quote from Doug Aberley: write one page:

"In our consumer society, mapping has become an activity primarily reserved for those in power, used to delineate the 'property' of nation states and multi-national companies. The making of maps has become dominated by specialists who wield satellites and other complex machinery. The result is that although we have great access to maps, we have also lost the ability ourselves to conceptualize, make and use images of place - skills which our ancestors honed over thousands of years. In return for this surrendered knowledge, maps have been appropriated for uses which are more and more sinister. Spewed forth from digital abstraction, they guide the incessant development juggernaut. They divide the whole local, regional, and continental environments into the absurdity of squared efficiency. They aid in attaching legitimacy to a reductionist control that strips contact with the web of life from the experience of place." (Aberly, Boundaries of Home, 1993, p. 1)

You have created or acquired many different kinds of maps this semester using the WWW - reference maps, toxic release data maps, satellite/air images, thematic maps, etc. Consider Aberley's argument in terms of your experiences using and making maps on the WWW this semester. Do you agree or disagree with him, or agree in part with him? Why? Support your answer with some actual examples that support your case. Some people have suggested that as more and more people have easy access to WWW-based mapping software, map literacy is as important as other kinds of literacy (writing, speaking). What do you think?

6) Consider another quote from Doug Aberley: write one page:

"...if you were entirely cynical, you could view the appropriation of mapping from common understanding as just another police action designed to assist the process of homogenizing 5,000 human cultures into one malleable and docile market. As a collective entity we have lost our languages, have forgotten our songs and legends, and now cannot even conceive of the space that makes up that most fundamental aspect of life - home. (Aberly, Boundaries of Home, 1993, p. 2)

Set your USGS topo map, the toxic sites map, the Map Browser maps, the satellite/air image, and choropleth maps of census data - all of the area around your 'home' - in front of you. In questions 1-5 (above) you critiqued these maps and how they represent your 'home.' Refer back to Exercise 1: Mental Mapping and the associated lecture material on Mental Mapping. Create a new mental map of the area around your 'home' (roughly the area shown on the USGS topo map and the choropleth maps) that focuses on things not shown on the cartographic maps. Follow the same instructions as in the Mental Mapping exercise: show what is most important to you about your home, people there, special places, etc. Be creative! Show what really matters about your 'home' on this 'map of home.' You need not only show 'tangible' things. Leave off what is not important. Don't worry about 'correct' distances, directions, scale, etc. Can you make a map that shows how you "conceive of the space that makes up that most fundamental aspect of life - home" (as Aberly puts it)?. Write one page summarizing the elements shown on your mental map and why they are important to you. Pay particular attention to things not shown on any of the other maps. Then ponder Aberley's quote. Write your reaction to the quote, given your experience making this mental map of your 'home.'

7) The Power of Maps: write two pages:

Look over all your maps of home, including your newly created mental map. Review what we have covered in lectures and readings this semester (maybe look at the two previous exam reviews). Discuss three of the most important insights you learned about maps this semester using all your maps of 'home' as examples (you may also use other examples, but try to relate these big issues to your maps of home). At the beginning of the semester I discussed why maps are powerful. Do you buy that they are powerful? Why? What is it about maps that makes them powerful? How has engaging in the map making process (mental maps, WWW maps) assisted in your understanding of the power of maps? How has creating multiple maps of home assisted in your understanding of the power of maps?

What is Due: Please turn in 10 pages typed (double spaced) of text. The required 10 pages does not include graphics, so what you hand in should be somewhat longer than 10 pages. Include your new mental map and a xerox of the 'home' part of your USGS topo map in appropriate locations in your exam. Also include copies of the other maps of home placed in your word processor document (or xerox copies would do).

E-mail: jbkrygie@cc.owu.edu

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