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Maps and Theories. Group Activity. Procedure. Look at the map your group was given. Come up with 5 questions you could answer using the map. Come up with 5 questions you might want to ask about the area shown, but can’t answer with the map given. Discuss.
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Maps and Theories Group Activity
Procedure • Look at the map your group was given. • Come up with 5 questions you could answer using the map. • Come up with 5 questions you might want to ask about the area shown, but can’t answer with the map given.
Discuss • How can maps be useful? • What are the strengths and limitations of the different maps? • What cautions or precautions do we need to consider when using maps?
Critical Questions • Who made the map? Why? • What is it for? • How was it made? • How detailed and accurate is it? • How current is it? • When is it appropriate to use it?
An Insight About Maps E.F. Shumaker described the following experience in his book, A Guide for the Perplexed: On a visit to Leningrad some years ago I consulted a map to find out where I was, but I could not make it out. From where I stood, I could see several enormous churches, yet there was no trace of them on my map…
An Insight About Maps When finally an interpreter came to help me, he said: “We don’t show churches on our maps.” Contradicting him, I pointed to one that was very clearly marked. “That is a museum,” he said, “not what we call a ‘living church.’ It is only the ‘living churches’ we don’t show.”
An Insight About Maps It then occurred to me that this was not the first time I had been given a map which failed to show many things I could see right in front of my eyes. --E. F Shumaker, A Guide for the Perplexed, p. 1.
Conclusion The map is not the territory.
So What? • What are theories? • How are they like maps? • How can theories be useful to teachers? • What can we learn about using theories from this map exercise?