The animated map in this link flies in the face of everything I have believed about world maps based on the Mercator projection maps that we all use with our students.
Any thoughts about how to use this animation with Library of Congress world maps?
I'm thinking that we could simply show the animation as a prompt for the Question Formulation Technique. I'm already imagining the questions students will ask.
Pre K - 2 3 - 5 6 - 8 9 - 12 Social Studies/History geography mapping cartography Mercator projection Question Formulation Technique
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Wow! I need to process this. What a mind blowing imagery.
Wonderful animation, thanks so much 
Mary Johnson
. Animations convey hard to visualize concepts. I like to have students view them, but even more I like to have students create them and struggle with how to convey visual information in interesting and impactful ways.
I think the maps in the Library of Congress could easily be used by students to create an animated visual comparing the actual size of two or more nations they have selected based on this animation. Thanks for the idea!
It is indeed difficult to wrap my head around this! I need a mathematician or geographer to explain how this works. ... Bueller?? Bueller? Anyone?? Mathematics Geography
You might want to drop a line to the Geography and Maps Ask A Librarian http://www.loc.gov/rr/askalib/ask-geogmap.html for some guidance.
The Geography and Maps Ask a Librarian feature was a great idea! I got a very quick reply:
"A few online resources may be helpful in understanding the Mercator projection and its nature of distorting land masses by mathematical necessity. Among them are an article by Amanda Briney on gislounge.com titled "A Look at the Mercator Projection" https://www.gislounge.com/look-mercator-projection/; Matt Rosenberg's article on ThoughCo.com https://www.thoughtco.com/peters-projection-and-the-mercator-map-4068412 on the differences between the Mercator and Peters projections, the utility of both, and the controversy involving their application; the website radicalcartography.net http://www.radicalcartography.net/?projectionref, which illustrates examples and properties of a variety of wall maps of the world; and a PowerPoint presentation titled "Map Projections and How they are Made," which I was able to access at images.pcmac.org › Schools › VillaRicaHigh › Uploads › Presentations"
This is a good example of how much we can learn from maps.
I am reminded of a map a student shared from the Southern Hemisphere perspective. That also gets us thinking. I also remember a map focusing more on Asia. It inspired a lot of discussion.
You may want to look at A mapp of Virginia discovered to ye hills, and in it's latt. from 35 deg. & 1/2 neer Florida to 41 deg. bounds of New England where north is to the right. I'm sure there are other maps from different perspectives within the Library's collections.
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