Mathematics has numerous links to wider society and can be found in many different fields, such as geography. Scoffahma (2013) states that mathematics can support understanding of geographical principles (p.112). One example of this is the coordinate system which links very closely with mathematical concepts. A coordinate system can be defined as the numeric representation of locations on the earth’s surface (Lanius, 2003). The most common or well known coordinate system is latitude and longitude. Latitude are parallels that run east-west, while longitude are meridians that run north-south (Lanius, 2003). Longitude and latitude are measurements expressed in 360°, where each degree can be divided into 60 minutes and each minute into 60 seconds (USDA, 2009).

Not only do coordinates play an important role in the creation of maps, but so does scale. Lanius (2003) defines scale as the relationship between distances on a map and the corresponding distances on the earth’s surface. This is usually expressed as a fraction or a ratio. This means that using the scale and the map, the actual distance can be worked out.

Using what we learned about in our mathematics in the outdoors lecture, we set about constructing our own map. Below is a photograph of our 3D map of Dundee with labels. We aimed to create a map of the main tourist attractions Dundee has to offer.
While we did manage to portray some of the important attractions of Dundee, we did not pay close attention to scale or location of these. To improve this we could have constructed a grid and used grid references to correctly place each attraction. Furthermore, we could have included a key and scale.

References

Lanius, C. (2003) Mathematics of Cartography. Available at: http://math.rice.edu/~lanius/pres/map/ (Accessed: 24 November 2015)

Scoffham, S. (2013) Teaching Geography Creatively. New York: Routhledge.

USDA (2009) Firefighter Math. Available at: http://www.firefightermath.org (Accessed: 24 November 2015)