Mercator vs Peters Maps (continued)

   Today in class we reviewed the video that we watched yesterday in class about the Peters Projection Map compared to the map we are used to seeing (which is the Mercator map). We had a discussion today about the idea of having the map we normally see flipped upside-down. In the video, the cartographers presented the government workers with an idea to have it flipped, so that we don't have a "top-bottom" attitude. This is saying that since we read left to right, and consider things "on the top" as "more important", like how America is one of the first things we see on the map, we have an attitude of thinking we are more important than other countries. Also in the video, they talked about how we usually associate size with importance/power. That is why they wanted to show the real size of countries and not distortions or inaccuracies. In class, we said that Peters Projection Map, is indeed, more accurate than the Mercator map, which was invented in 1569 for European travelers getting across the Atlantic. Then, we debated if the flipped world map was a good idea, or would just not solve any problems. Mr. Schick eventually talked about how it is simply another way of looking at the world, but to us, this change is strange because we are not used to it. Later on, our class heard the story of the toad that came into Mr. Schick's room in the morning and was set back into the wild to roam free. Finally, we got our tests back! We reviewed every question and he let us know that some of these questions on the test will be on our final exam in December.