I just ordered upside-down maps for my grandkids

[skygazer]

I was reading something that mentioned world maps with a south-up point of view and thought that would be a neat gift. I found some very cool ones online and bought one for each of my grandkids as well as my best buddy's kids. I think they'll tweak their brains a bit and maybe make them think about how we look at things.

Anyone seen these? They're very cool.

[lizziegrace]

1. I've never seen those

do you have a link?

:)

[skygazer]

2. Here you go

http://odtmaps.com/default.asp?REFERER=MCART

They're neat - after all, there's no reason to orient our maps with north on top. It's just convention because we're so eurocentric. These are nifty - I ordered several of the What's Up? South maps. :hi:

[greatauntoftriplets]

3. Those are really cool!!!

How old are your grandkids? The triplets will be seven in the fall, and I think I'd like to get them one of those. Turn their world upside down, as it were.

[skygazer]

4. My oldest grandkid will be 10 this year

My other daughter's kids are 4 and almost 6 - a little young yet but they're very smart and I think they'll appreciate it. My friend's kids are 7 and 5 (I think) - my friend in particular will love it. He loves quirky and new ways of looking at the world.

They are cool, aren't they?

[greatauntoftriplets]

5. Thanks, I will save the link.

I like quirky gifts like that for them. Will probably also order for the other greats (acquired recently when my nephew married a woman with three kids), who are 11, almost 9 and 6.

All six are smart, so I think that they will enjoy them.

[SCDem]

6. There was a whole episode on the West Wing about

the Cartographers for Social Justice. In episode 216, "Somebody's Going to Emergency, Somebody's Going to Jail," Toby Ziegler meets with the fictional group "World Policies Studies," which objects to the World Trade Organization, and C.J. Cregg meets with "The Organization of Cartographers for Social Equality", which would like legislature to support a specific map projection. The fictional cartographic organization prefers the equal-area Peters World Map or Gall-Peters projection to the more common Mercator projection.

And here is the scene : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efjcrbNcW6s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRtN4UK1wHk&NR=1



I love it!

[skygazer]

7. Interesting

This web site mentions the West Wing - I think they did something for that episode.

[SCDem]

8. The Gall-Peters Projection map

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gall-Peters_projection

[fizzgig]

9. i was just gonna post about that episode

damn, i love the 'big block of cheese' episodes...i also really miss that show :(

[SCDem]

10. me too

Hey this weekend I saw Talk to Me http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0796368/ It was great and Martin Sheen is great in it.

[Orrex]

11. "Upside-down?" You're *so* northern-hemisphere-o-centric!

But despite your shocking prejudice (:evilgrin:), that still sounds really nifty.

A possible side effect of having differently-oriented maps will be to help them keep the concept of "north" separate from the concept of "up," which I think becomes almost subconscious by some point. Maybe you'll be helping their general skills of spatial awareness?

Cool!