NACIS 2016 Presentation
Joy Santee, McKendree University
This presentation reports how introduction of cartography in general education courses can help university students combat limits of subject-specific thinking and embrace complex interdisciplinary critical thought. In an age where students often resist complex thinking in favor of finding answers through a quick search on their phones, introducing them to maps and cartographic practices can prompt social awareness, problem-solving skills, and citizen-engagement. The presentation begins with a brief overview of how the presenter has introduced cartography in general education courses after developing materials during a National Endowment for the Humanities Seminar. It continues with vignettes of student engagement with maps and ends with a call for cartographers to make their work visible, particularly their decisions about design and content and the social and institutional contexts that impact map-making, so students can use cartography as a way to identify how they can contribute to making the world a better place.
5. Challenges of Critical Visual Literacy
natesilver: So to return to my earlier point: What tangible difference does it make if Clinton wins
nationally by 7 points and wins Arizona by a point, versus when she wins nationally by 7 points but loses
Arizona by a point?
harry: People look to the map to understand how big the victory was. We have a winner-take-all system.
micah: Yeah, if the map everyone sees on Nov. 9 is covered in blue, doesn’t that make a difference?
clare.malone: I think it’s a reasonable goal for them to want to/try to win at least one unexpected state. A
spot of blue in a sea of red can be a striking visual that people walk away with.
natesilver: So should they aim for states that are physically larger because they’re more impressive on the
map?
6. Challenges of Critical Visual Literacy
clare.malone: Hah, yes.
natesilver: So Alaska then?
clare.malone: No.
natesilver: Or not Alaska because it gets shrunken down?
harry: Is this a Mercator problem? I don’t know maps.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/should-clinton-play-for-an-electoral-college-landslide/?ex_cid=2016-
forecast
8. Challenges of Contemporary
Problem Solving
Complex problems in corporate, governmental, and
nonprofit sectors require flexible interdisciplinary
and transdisciplinary thinking.
10. So What Are My Students Doing?
Exploring: Wildlife corridors, economic impact of
hunting, educational funding
Creating: Cartographic art, campus resources,
propaganda maps for our school
Arguing: That parking isn’t so bad on our campus
11. So What Are My Students Doing?
Exploring: Ethics of disaster tourism, trends in
culinary tourism, boundaries of drone use
Creating: Maps for a children’s book, family
heritage scrapbook, mixtapes of place-based songs
Arguing: For small town travel by mapping
attractions
12.
13. What can Gen Ed instructors do?
● Promote visual literacy through analysis and
critique of cartographic presentations of
information in your field.
● Encourage students to use maps in their
research.
● Reinforce the rhetorical nature of maps by
having them create a map. (Then make them do
