Our+Atlas

Our atlas will be titled //“**A School Atlas of Nevada**”//. It will be designed to be used in Nevada schools to promote geographic awareness, education, and understanding of geographic concepts and techniques. It will encompass both the ‘physical’ and ‘human’ aspects of Nevada’s geography. Therefore, we must take care to design a product that both speaks to the right audience in terms of its design informational content.

Our task is to make some decisions on how our atlas will look and what content will be delivered. There are some resources which we can use to help identify both the ‘how’ and the ‘what’ of our atlas.

__‘HOW’__ – we are all cartographers. We know how to design good maps. But in this case, we must design for a specific audience. These resources should help us identify how to design our atlas:

(1) we should look at the class wiki for information on good design and appropriate use of thematic maps. The mapping guides and the design suggestions on our wiki will be very helpful.

(2) Since this is an educational atlas, we should examine several atlases and textbook to identify the stylistic considerations (use of color, use of font, and graphics) which make for a good educational product.

__‘WHAT’__ – in large part, our audience is going to dictate what content is most appropriate for our atlas. These resources may help us identify what, in terms of content, will make for a good educational atlas of Nevada.

(1) The National Geography Standards.

(2) National Geographic has a tremendous resource for geography educators called Xpeditions (http://www.nationalgeographic.com/education/xpeditions/). It has lesson plans, activities, and links to interactive content that should give clues to what makes for a good educational atlas. Check out the standards section (http://www.nationalgeographic.com/xpeditions/standards/matrix.html) for activities that link to specific standards.

(3) The articles at the bottom of http://genip.tamu.edu/geolife.htm should be useful to us. Examine these carefully.

The Atlas Pages - our collaborrative discussion on the What and How of our atlas.