Handley 1

Jessica Handley
Leaver
AP HuG- 3
19 February 2016
Unit 1: Geography: Its Nature and Perspective
Without an awareness of our environment, we will never be able to truly connect
across all degrees as human beings. When given the correct tools to facilitate critical
thinking, one can spatially analyze the correlation between different factors of geography.
One such tool is National Geographics Interactive Map Maker, which can display how
different layers of geography affect one another. This Map Maker can be used to analyze
the correlation between urbanization and technology, or something as simple as the
interaction between volcanoes and plate boundaries. In order to understand how different
factors of geography affect one another, one must utilize the tools given to analyze a
relationship between them.
While using the National Geographics Interactive Map Maker, I chose to make a
map displaying where cities are around the world and the distribution of Internet use
around the world. The layers displayed city lights at night, and a solid coloring of where
Internet is used most prominently. This map displayed the relationship between
urbanization and technology. This utilization of cartography and global spatial analysis
systems like GIS provided a better understanding as to how urbanization and technology
are connected. I concluded that in areas that are more urbanize, there are more people
using the Internet, and therefore more people taking advantage of technology. Without
this mapmaking tool, I would not have been able to recognize the urbanization that was

Handley 2
happening in our world. Another map that I chose to make displays the correlation
between plate boundaries and various volcanic eruptions. Using National Geographics
remote sensing data, the layers displayed the location of these eruptions in relation to the
different colored plates below the surface of the Earth. I discovered that there is a
relationship between the two layers, as volcanoes are more prominently located on the
boundaries of these plates. The remote sensing data that has been created as a result of
more industrialization in our world has ultimately increased a sense of awareness of our
worlds landscape.
This tool has changed my perspective on maps, as I had never realized the true
importance of such technologies, ranging from simple cartography to modernized remote
sensing, and how they can help me to analyze the relationships between geographic
factors in our world today. This mapmaker enhances my understanding of the fact that
tools like remote sensing data and GIS are truly a necessity to understanding how humans
interact with the environment. Especially in our modernized world, geographers are
required to equip themselves with the necessary technology in order to recognize cultural,
environmental, and political factors that are affecting the continual shaping of society.
With the provided geographic concepts, skills, and tools that facilitate critical
thinking and problem solving, one can then analyze how different geographic factors
affect each other on a day-to-day basis. These geographic factors in turn affect our
cultural beliefs and experiences, which we would not have been able to recognize without
the utilization of cartographic technologies.