Map: Why Where

I asked my students a couple trick questions today.  Some of them caught them, but most students were tricked.  ...I did warn them that they were trick questions.

They went something like this:

When looking at a map of the world, what continent or ocean is in the center?  The north? The south? What continent is on the east of the map? The west?  The top?  The bottom?  Why?

Some of those questions have definitive answers, but the majority of the answers are: it depends.  Why does it depend?  Because the earth is round, of course.  So, we can split the map along the Pacific Ocean, like this:

As you can see, Africa is in the middle.  But we could also split the map through Asia, like this:

Now we have North and South America in the middle.

Hopefully you get the idea.  That was the first trick.  There's no continent or ocean that's at the center of the map.  And it's the same with top and bottom.  Although all of these maps show the Arctic Ocean at the top, and Antarctica and the Southern Ocean at the bottom, they don't have to:

The earth is a sphere orbiting the sun.  There's no up or down.  We're just used to seeing north as up, and south as down.  So, the top and bottom of the map can change.  However, the north and south haven't changed.  Although the South Pole is now at the top of the map, it's still the South Pole.  Antarctica is still in the south.  Only now, we'd have to say, "up south," rather than "down south."

I think this last image makes the point even more clearly.  The South Pole is in the middle of the map.  It's not the top, or bottom, but it's still the South Pole.

Students can get extra credit by reading and discussing this blog with an adult.  To prove they did this, they should write 3 sentences about their discussion, and have the adult sign the paper.  Students: make sure your name, date, and hour are on it, and put it in the extra credit tray tomorrow.

!!!!BONUS: If you want, feel free to check out the videos we watched in class today.!!!