Maps: The Promise of Exploration

Juliet Nagel ·
23 March 2016
| Science Communication | Applying Science | Learning Science |     5 comments

Juliet Nagel

I’ve always loved maps. As a child, I would follow along on the road map as we took family trips across my home state of Wisconsin, tracing the routes and watching for town names as we passed through them, strange-sounding places like Weyauwega and Oconomowoc. I would wonder, is Greenville greener than other towns? Where is the spring located in Spring Valley, or was it named after the season? I could (and still can) spend hours looking at maps, finding names of towns that sound exciting or strange, looking at interesting landmarks, finding parks that I want to go explore. That is what draws me: the possibilities for exploration. Maps represent places we can go; they provide directions on how to reach our destination and show us what we might see along the way.

In the same way, using maps to display data also allows us to explore the result of our research. They provide a spatial representation of numbers that graphs and charts alone cannot achieve. When designed skillfully, they present the data in a way that leads us to the right conclusion. Maps are especially useful for research spread across a region, as with Ben Wahle’s work across the Mississippi Watershed (Figure 1). Can you imagine trying to explain the sampling locations and results without a map?

Example of spatial data displayed on a map, courtesy of Ben Wahle.
Figure 1. Example of spatial data displayed on a map, courtesy of Ben Wahle.

Just as we’ve been learning with conceptual diagrams and graphs, maps share many of the same elements that we must consider. For anyone who has been following along with our blogs, these will be familiar to you:

  • Title (should be descriptive)
  • Color (color-blind considerations, and in choosing how to best represent your data)
  • Fonts (should be legible and consistent)
  • Simplicity (get rid of the Junk)
  • Legend (must be comprehensive)
  • Avoid acronyms and jargon
  • Adding symbols can be very powerful

Maps do have a few special elements however. They should include a scale bar, may need a north arrow, and must provide enough detail to orient the user. To be useful for the widest range of viewers, scale bars should include both miles and kilometers. The north arrow is a little trickier. Given any map, most people assume north is “up” or at the top of the page. Therefore, if north is any other direction, a north arrow is essential. The map projection must also be taken into consideration. The projection is the system that was used to convert a curved surface (the actual shape of the earth) to a flat map. Compare the two images below (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Comparing two maps of the United States: on top, a Mercator projection; on the bottom, an Albers equal-area conic projection. Credit: worldatlas.com (top) and freeusandworldmaps.com (bottom).
Figure 2. Comparing two maps of the United States: on top, a Mercator projection; on the bottom, an Albers equal-area conic projection. Credit: worldatlas.com (top) and freeusandworldmaps.com (bottom).

The map of the United States on top is from the Mercator projection, which turns the globe into a giant cylinder and unrolls it. In this way, north is always in the same direction everywhere on the map, but true sizes are distorted. The map on the bottom is from an Albers equal-area conic projection. This system more closely represents true shapes and sizes, however notice that north changes across the map as you move from west to east (this can be seen most clearly by looking at the state borders that follow longitudinal lines), so a north arrow here would not be accurate for the entire map. Instead, you could consider including latitude and longitude. This can be especially useful for a map of the ocean, which will be lacking in other landmarks (Figure 3).

A great example of using latitude and longitude to orient the user, especially as the main map depicts an area of open ocean. Map courtesy of Wilmelie Cruz Marrero.
Figure 3. A great example of using latitude and longitude to orient the user, especially as the main map depicts an area of open ocean. Map courtesy of Wilmelie Cruz Marrero.

Maps must also provide enough detail to orient the user. The north arrow and scale bar provide some clues for orientation, but knowing where on the globe the map is depicting is important. This can be accomplished by adding in the names of major cities for example, or by including an inset map. Balancing the ratio of this inset map to the main map can take some experimentation. See the map below by Keota Silaphone for an excellent example of providing information to orient the user (Figure 4). In the main map, Keota labels state lines and main rivers, and includes a few nearby towns. However, since most people won’t be familiar with the region, she also provides the inset map of the northeastern USA.

Provide clues for the map user, such as town names and an inset map like in this excellent map courtesy of Keota Silaphone.
Figure 4. Provide clues for the map user, such as town names and an inset map like in this excellent map courtesy of Keota Silaphone.

Finally, I was struck once again by the usefulness of listening to other people’s thoughts and insights about something I’ve designed. I feel some of the most valuable time spent in our class is going through each person’s project and sharing ideas. I’m constantly amazed at how I can bring a diagram or graph that I feel is decent and gets the point across, and then learn how to make it so much better. My “before” and “after” maps are like night and day (Figure 5). My original map has the same data, it includes a north arrow, scale bar, and shows the locations of all the acoustic routes. After a few minutes of talking with the class, and a lot of time spent working with mapping software, I came up with the “after” map. Instead of numbers, colored dots represent the levels of bat activity. A cleaner outline of the Maryland counties replaced the busy satellite image. Overall, the patterns in the data become clear where before they were not obvious.

Two maps representing the same data, showing the benefits of brainstorming and listening to advice from our talented class.
Figure 5. Two maps representing the same data, showing the benefits of brainstorming and listening to advice from our talented class.

It’s evident that maps are a very useful device in science, an excellent way to explore data or show the location of a research project. As with other types of science visualization tools, they present their own challenges and considerations, but are well worth the effort. When creating a map, don’t be afraid to try new techniques. Keep experimenting, and keep exploring until you find what works best.


Next Post > Environmental literacy of the Texas coastline

Comments

  • Noelle O. 9 years ago

    Your "after" map looks simple yet sophisticated! This blog post is a great summary of the main points we learned during the two weeks of class we discussed maps. This was a nice science visualization refresher, especially after coming back from break!

  • MbS 9 years ago

    J (BatWoman), thank you for this thoughtful summary of our discussion on map principles and then our workshop on our map before/after versions.

    I want to keep this peer group going after the class ends. Just as journal club sessions are a way that many laboratories keep current on literature, we really need sci-vizzie groups for the rest of our research, writing, and presenting lives.

    Your reminder about the limits of 2D maps to invoke 3D worlds is really helpful. I will share this with my undergraduate writing students next week, so double thank you.

    I would also just like to shout out to all the map people over the years who first explored, then sketched, then revised, then developed a grammar and an ornament of maps (compass rose, N/S arrows, topography and vegetation symbols, and even the creatures of "here, there be dragons" on our older maps). I also am so humbled by remote sensing and satellite work to give us new map details and even real-time pictures of our study locales. As some of you will recall from class, one of my projects concerns a rather un-mapped remote area of Central America. This knowledge gap humbles me about how we still need explorers to ground truth our maps.

    Two links on maps, that wrap up some of our discussions on maps and images, as well as the ethics of global communication and audience needs.

    WOMEN
    ESRI is mapping the women mappers who contribute to ESRI work here:
    http://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=c421c79aef2745afacc48e7836dc265f

    OWNERSHIP/INDIGENOUS PEOPLE
    And, maps are also one of the ways we note borders and land/ownership. So, we might also want to note that not all land is mapped and this might reflect a more collective ownership. This Landmark project was helpful to me in trying to think about the "missing" maps for my Southern Belize project.

    http://www.landmarkmap.org
    LANDMARK MAP, mission statement: LandMark is a dynamic, online mapping platform that provides critical information on the collective land and natural resource rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities around the world. The global platform supports local livelihoods and well-being by increasing the visibility of indigenous and community lands and presenting crucial information on the state of land rights

    LANGUAGE
    A friend walked me through this Google Maps Pro guide on changing the home language to something other than English. Worked pretty well, at least for a little test drive in German. I look forward to even more options in GIS and other maps to specify a language, too. That is important for global environmental communication.
    http://www.wpgmaps.com/documentation/changing-the-google-maps-language/

  • Kara Hawkins 9 years ago

    Great blog, Juliet! Maps are awesome and using them as tools to explore data is a great way to look at it. Going through everyone's before and after maps was so helpful! Seeing everyone's maps was really fun and interesting. I'm glad that you added the section on projection. It is so easy to forget that our earth can be projected in so many different ways, and north isn't always where you think it is. I, too, enjoy maps and glad that we could work with them for a couple of weeks!

  • Dylan Taillie 9 years ago

    Hi Juliet!

    I thought your blog was a great reflection on our past weeks work. Your map specifically showed huge improvement and I think that is testament to the success of the review and comment process that we do in our class. Your synopsis overall was spot on, it put the information we have been learning about maps into perspective and was a great overview.
    In one of your first paragraphs you state "when designed skillfully, [maps]..." and I think this is a key part of our class. Skillfully designing our communication products is integral to creating a clear and visually pleasing product. This is something that is often overlooked in science communication, most of the time one person spends so much time designing their project that whenever they look at it they immediately understand it but when someone else looks at it, it may take a while. I think that elements of "skillful designing" include creating a rough draft that generally communicates the information and then a more final draft that is tweeked to be understandable for the average un-specialized scientist or even just the public in general. Putting different lenses on by yourself and even offering your diagrams up to forums (such as MaryBeth suggested - a scivizzie journal club) is an incredibly helpful step in the "skillful designing" process.
    Thanks so much for your blog!
    Dylan

  • jio 8 years ago

    Great blog, Juliet! Maps are awesome and using them as tools to explore data is a great way to look at it. Going through everyone’s before and after maps was so helpful! Seeing everyone’s maps was really fun and interesting. I’m glad that you added the section on projection. It is so easy to forget that our earth can be projected in so many different ways, and north isn’t always where you think it is. I, too, enjoy maps and glad that we could work with them for a couple of weeks!

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