What Does Earth Actually Look Like?
TOK - Geography - Lesson 1
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Objective 1. To examine our interpretation of the world around us, and knowledge of both the human and physical environment.
Starter - Annotate the worksheet to the right. What are you seeing and how do you know? Resources: Presentation - Click here Guardian Article - Click here BBC News Article October 2012 Task 1 - You and your partner have 30 minutes to draw a map of the world and locate and annotate the following features onto your map: •5 Political Items (Cities, Countries, etc.) •5 Geographic Features (Mountains, Rivers, Oceans) •5 Inventions (like the automobile). •5 Cultural Items (Art, Music, Religion) •5 Historical Items (People, Events, etc.) •5 Arrows Showing Movement across Space (such as the Mongols invading Europe or Smallpox coming to the Americas) •A place that we are not meant to know about Task 2 - Share your work with other students in the class. Provide feedback on the accuracy of the information, including both the hand dawn map and the 30 items that have have been added. Check out the map image below. How does your map compare with this? Provide a 100 word commentary to be given back to the group. |
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TOK - Geography - Lesson 2
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Objective 1 - To find out if common global geographical perspectives are all that they seem.
Resources: Upside Down Map Page - Here Starter - Watch the West Wing video clip above right and watch 'The Impossible Map' from 1947 to the right. Task 1 - Play with the Google Maps Mercator puzzle here! Task 2 - Now, check out this site from Jason Davis! Task 3 - Test your skills with this game. - The true size of countries around the world. Task 4 - Using the resources above and the activity that we completed in lesson 1, prepare structured notes around one of the following questions. GEOGRAPHY TOK Titles for Investigation To what extent can maps be viewed as the territory? Or ‘Is the map the same as the territory it represents?’ What danger is there of confusing the map, however detailed its representation is, with the actual territory? The length of a coastline is infinite. Discuss the validity of this statement. To what extent can we accept the view that every event and every phenomenon is unique and as such cannot be linked to any other event or phenomenon unless we impose a likeness or pattern? To what extent are models simply our way of imposing a ‘meaningful’ pattern on reality? |
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