​What Does Earth Actually Look Like? 


TOK - Geography  -  Lesson 1 of 2

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Objective 1. To examine our interpretation of the world around us and knowledge of both the human and physical environment.

Resources:
Presentation - Click here
Guardian Article - Click here
BBC News Article October 2012 

Task 1 - You and your partner have 30 minutes to draw a map of the world and locate and annotate the following features onto your map:

•5 Political Items (Cities, Countries, etc.)

•5 Geographic Features (Mountains, Rivers, Oceans)

•5 Inventions

•5 Cultural Items (Art, Music, Religion)

•5 Historical Items (People, Events, etc.)

•5 Arrows Showing Movement across Space (such as the Mongols invading Europe or Smallpox coming to the Americas)​

•Something that we are not meant to know about

Task 2 - Share your work with other students in the class.  Provide feedback on the accuracy of the information, including both the hand dawn map and the 30 items that have have been added. Provide a 100 word commentary to be given back to the group. You may use an Atlas for 'marking' this section.

TOK- Geography 

Lesson 2 of  2

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Objective 1 - To find out if common global geographical perspectives are all that they seem.

Resources:
Oxfam Chat Show - Here
Worksheet to go with the website - here
Upside Down Map Page - Here

Starter - Watch the West Wing video clip above right and 
Watch 'The Impossible Map'  from 1947 to the right. 

Task 1 - A global lie?
Click here to be taken to the Oxfam chatshow Mercator v Peters. So, what are your views on each. Time to debate. Fill in the relevant sections of the worksheet (see above)

Task 2 -  The solution.
Click here to be taken to the Oxfam map merging programme. Play around with the maps before answering the plenary questions at the end.

​Or try the Google Maps Mercator puzzle here! More difficult! 

If you want real mind bending stuff, check out this site from Jason Davis! 

Task 3 - Test your skills with this game. - The true size of countries around the world. 
GEOGRAPHY TOK Titles for Investigation

·         To what extent are the methods of the natural sciences applicable in the human sciences?
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·         Are the findings of the natural sciences as reliable as those of the human sciences?  What is the meaning of ‘a scientific law’ in each area?

·         To what extent can empathy, intuitive, and feeling be legitimate ways of knowing in the human sciences?

·         Are there human qualities or behaviours that will remain beyond the scope of the human sciences?

·         To what extent can information in human sciences be quantified?

·         Do knowledge claims in the human sciences imply ethical duties?

·         To what extent do the knowledge claims of the social sciences apply across different ages and cultures?

·         To what extent can maps be viewed as the territory? Or ‘Is the map the same as the territory it represents?’

·         What danger is there of confusing the map, however detailed its representation is, with the actual territory?

·         To what extent can Global warming or Climate change be viewed as the truth?

·         The length of a coastline is infinite.  Discuss the validity of this statement.

·         To what extent may the change from ‘The theory of Continental drift’ to ‘The theory of Plate Tectonics’ be viewed as a paradigm shift’

·         To what extent can we accept the view that every event and every phenomenon is unique and as such cannot be linked to any other event or phenomenon unless we impose a likeness or pattern?

·         To what extent are models simply our way of imposing a ‘meaningful’ pattern on reality?
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