Student thinking with atlas maps
We have relatively little hard evidence for secondary school students’ thinking with atlas maps and
that which exists is somewhat patchy, mostly rather dated and not always very reliable. Most of the
work that has been done related to conventional atlas mapping: we know even less about school
students’ use of digital cartography.
What we can be confident about is that many students struggle with the concept of scale (Bartz,
1971). Representative fractions (the ratio expressing the scale relationship between the map and the
real world) for small-scale maps involve very large numbers and the real world distances represented
by, say, a centimetre on the map are too large to be easily related to everyday experience. We know
also that some forms of scale information in atlases can be unhelpful, for example, linear scale bars
that have a subdivided portion to the left of the zero mislead students as they invariably assume that
the far left edge starts at 0 (Bartz 1965). Many students have difficulty relating the scale of an inset to
that of the main map (Towler and Nelson, 1968) and making comparisons between maps at two
different scales can be a challenge (Boardman, 1988). Parts of the world presented at variable scales
in atlases can give the impression that some regions are larger or smaller than they really are in
relation to each other. The representation of Scandinavia in British atlases at a smaller scale than
other parts of Europe may account for it being underrepresented on students’ own maps (Axia et al.,
1998).
Small-scale maps are highly generalised. Only the most significant features are shown and detail is
simplified. In short, the smaller the scale, the more is omitted. Students may therefore assume that
because only a few settlements are marked, only a few settlements exist (Sandford, 1972). In fact
there are likely to be many more than those shown but they fall below the threshold population size
for inclusion on the map. To show them all would make the map hopelessly crowded. The use of
individual point symbols for towns can also encourage students to underestimate the extent of urban
sprawl as the spaces between the points suggests open countryside (Sandford, 1981). On small
scale thematic maps students may not understand that only the most significant instances of the
theme will be shown. Often, only a general trend is illustrated, and care needs to be taken over
interpretation of individual symbols (Elg, 2003 in Wiegand, 2006). Many thematic maps deal with high
levels of abstraction that are nor easy to resolve. Faced with a population density map showing a
category representing ‘less than 1 person per square kilometre’, one student asked ‘Are they
dwarves?’ (Passini, 2003 in Wiegand, 2006). If the data set being mapped is subtle, students may
oversimplify its meaning in order to make the idea more concrete. Illiteracy rates (even those that are
reasonably high) may, for example, be oversimplified as ‘places where no-one can read or write’
(Wiegand, 2003).
Although some atlas map symbols appear to be intuitive, such as blue for the sea or a black dot for
settlement (Bartz, 1965; Ottoson, 1987), users generally have to refer to the map legend or key for
explanation. However, simply reading the key is not the same as correctly interpreting the map.
Students need a clear mental picture of the features described. It’s not enough to be able to say that
a colour on the map represents a National Park if your mental image of a National Park is one that
consists of land in national ownership that has swings and roundabouts. Legend errors begin early.
Asked about picture symbols on atlas maps, a sample of primary school children failed to understand
what the pictures represented (Wiegand and Stiel, 1996). An illustration of a car (which just happened
to be red and was intended by the map maker to stand for ‘where cars are made’) was interpreted as
a ‘car park’, ‘traffic jam’, ‘car showroom’ or simply ‘where they like red cars’. Children naturally
interpret symbols in the light of their own experience. They have experience of traffic jams, car parks
and so on but not of motor vehicle manufacture. For the same reason, secondary school students
may be more likely to interpret symbols that show the location of economic activity as retail outlets
rather than manufacturing plants (Wiegand, 2002).
Colour on maps is particularly problematic. Green is frequently interpreted to mean ‘grassland’ when
on topographic maps it generally refers not to land use but to land height (Patton and Crawford, 1978,
Sandford, 1980b). Northern Siberia is low, not lush. The way land height is represented in the legend
may have a bearing on map interpretation (De Lucia and Hiller, 1982). Some land height keys look
three-dimensional – they resemble a small landscape model. This design appears to be better for
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helping students make judgements about the shape of the land whereas a simple stack of layer tints
helps more precise identification of height from the map.
Map context is important with respect to symbol interpretation. On an atlas map of the Arctic Ocean
students interpreted the symbol for pack ice correctly if they associated the adjacent text Arctic with
‘ice’. If the text label held no meaning for them they were likely to interpret the symbol incorrectly
(Bartz, 1965). Actually, text on maps can cause significant difficulties. Even allowing for the fact that
place names are printed over coloured points, lines and areas, making them difficult to read, the
words themselves are almost always unfamiliar and difficult to pronounce. They are also written in a
typographic code. Because students don’t understand that the use of upper case, sentence case,
italics and bold type contains meaning, they find it more difficult to separate the names of countries
from those of settlements, mountains and regions (Sandford, 1980a). Sometimes it isn’t easy to
match place name labels to land areas – especially when the land in question covers a large area
and has a complex shape, such as Indonesia (Bartz, 1967). Understanding nested spatial hierarchies
(how places ‘fit’ inside each other, for example: Paris, France, Europe) helps students make sense of
the map (Harwood and McShane, 1996). On the whole, memory for maps is structured so that larger
units are preferentially remembered over smaller ones (Stevens and Coupe, 1978; McNamara, 1986).
Countries are ‘encoded’ into memory before cities.
Teachers should find it helpful to know that there is generally a pattern to students’ accumulation of
place knowledge. Children seem to be aware of some parts of the wider world from a very early age
(perhaps France, Spain, Africa, America and Australia) whereas other places remain relatively
obscure throughout the school years and into adulthood (such as central America, individual
countries in Africa, the Middle East and SE Asia) (Lambert and Wiegand, 1990; Wiegand, 1991).
Students’ experience is typically limited to few map projections, with possible consequences for their
perception of how the world ‘fits together’. They don’t necessarily find it difficult to confront new views
of the world though. One group of students had little problem using an interrupted projection: they
understood intuitively why Greenland was labelled twice as the land mass had been split to
accommodate the curvature of the Earth (Bartz, 1965).
Of course, not all school students make the errors described above. But geography teachers need to
carefully check the understandings and misconceptions that students bring to their use of atlas maps.
The activities suggested below are intended to help trainee teachers
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review the extent and nature of atlas provision in school
check for student understanding of some aspects of small scale maps
develop some helpful strategies for teaching with atlas maps
Remember that the aim is not to avoid the use of small-scale maps because there are common
misconceptions about how they work but to anticipate potential student misunderstanding. Map
interpretation is as much about what the user brings to the map as it is about how the cartographer
has represented the information (MacEachren, 1995).
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References
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*Bartz, B. S. (1967) ‘Evaluation of two-color political maps in the World Book’, unpublished report,
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*Bartz, B. S. (1971) ‘Designing maps for children’, in H. W. Castner and G. McGrath (eds) Map
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*Elg, M. (2003) ‘The cartography of a school atlas’, poster presented at the 21 st International
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*Wiegand, P. and Stiell, B. (1996) ‘Communication in children’s picture atlases’, The Cartographic
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