Cartographic Perspectives (E-Journal - North American Cartographic Information Society, NACIS)
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Every Mapping Project Needs a Fire Keeper: Lessons from the Kanehsatà:ke Land Defense Mapping Project
No full textThis paper explores the critical yet often overlooked aspect of maintenance in decolonial and Indigenous mapping projects. Indigenous communities across Canada have developed alliances with university researchers to develop mapping projects that communicate their relationships to land to outsiders. However, without ongoing maintenance and care, maps can deteriorate or be repurposed in ways that can be harmful to Indigenous communities. I introduce the “fire keeper” as a person or group of people tasked with maintenance, care, and responsibility for the life cycle of maps incorporating Indigenous data. Using the Kanehsatà:ke Land Defense mapping project developed with a Kanehsatakeró:non Land Defender as a case study, I describe how the role of the fire keeper facilitated the adaptation and evolution of the map in response to the Land Defender’s changing objectives. Maintaining the Kanehsatà:ke Land Defense mapping project became an exploration of options rather than a rush to deliver an output. Based on a series of four semi-structured interviews that I conducted with (1) a campaigner, (2) a digital media strategist, (3) university students, and (4) a Québécois history enthusiast, the Land Defender was able to make strategic decisions about how the Kanehsatà:ke Land Defense mapping project should be deployed and which objectives and audiences, if any, would best support the reclamation of Kanehsatakeró:non lands while also protecting their geospatial and archival intellectual property. The paper concludes by encouraging mapmakers to dedicate more time, energy, and resources to map maintenance than they currently do
Mapping COVID-19: Applying Ethical Strategies in Web Mapping Decisions
No full textIn December 2019, the world was introduced to a coronavirus, the likes of which have never been seen before, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic. During the initial months of the pandemic, academics, government agencies, and concerned citizens, among others, raced to generate maps to help explain the geographic spread of the virus over space and time. Maps, however, can be intentionally or unintentionally misleading; we saw this play out during the pandemic as we rushed to make COVID-19 dashboards and online maps. While the Johns Hopkins University’s COVID-19 dashboard served as the first authoritative resource on the pandemic, it lacked the spatial granularity required for smaller states, such as Connecticut. Realizing this limitation, a team of geography Ph.D. students and faculty came together to develop a dashboard better suited to serve the residents of the state and aid policymakers during a time when each decision could have vast consequences. This case study reflects on our team’s strategies to address the ethical considerations to deliver high-quality maps and to promote healthy skepticism among users of the COVID-19 dashboard. We first provide a historical background of the discussion around ethics in cartography that we used to frame our arguments and strategies. Second, we summarize our deliverables, starting with an online interactive dashboard for 169 towns suitable for both mobile and desktop viewing. For the visualizations, we tried to balance the right amount of health information so that they were cartographically sound, easy to understand, and not misleading. As geographers, this is one of our responsibilities to our communities
Investigating Web Mapping's Contribution to Students' Learning of Geographical Thinking
No full textResearch on the use of online maps in geography education underlines their potential to foster geographic thinking. However, the role of interactivity in this process has not been considered in educational settings. To address this issue, the contribution of web mapping to students’ taxonomy is investigated. Our methodology combines analysis of student productions, mouse tracking, spatiotemporal clustering, statistical modeling, and focus groups. The data collection was carried out in three stages in a class of 20 students aged 14–15 years, using three online mapping interfaces with similar interactive features. Students’ productions were evaluated using scores based on criteria constructed from Bloom’s revised taxonomy to analyze their learning. Students’ scores were compared to the way they interacted with the online maps. Results show how students master the tool over time. Temporal and spatial patterns of interactive behavior, and their impact on learning, were evident. Several of the cartographic interactions that we studied—such as spatial navigation and the display layer of attributes—had a positive impact on student learning when used moderately and intermittently, whereas juxtaposition only contributed positively when used occasionally. Focus group analysis complemented and contextualized our results by highlighting other factors such as students’ emotions and their issues in interpreting the maps. As a result, we consider this exploratory research to provide an appropriate and useful methodological combination for further research into how digital tools contribute to learning