Lesson Plan: Projections and Globemaking

This lesson tells the story of the ways the surface of the earth has been depicted throughout history, and how maps came to be the way they are today. It looks at medieval T-O maps, Ptolemaic maps, longitude and latitude, globes, and projections. The presentation is followed up by a creative globe-making activity that reinforces the difficulties mapmakers face when projecting the 3-dimensional earth on a flat surface. An additional activity using the Dymaxion Map-Globe of Buckminster Fuller is also available.