Considering Scale Maps are like pictures that show you places and things from angles that you don’t typically see in real life The most common angle for a map is a view from far above which is sometimes called a bird’s eye view But a map is much more than just a picture because it is meant to show very specific information Photos of New York taken from above don’t look much like maps The streets aren’t labeled Roads are not highlighted and places of interest are not identified A topographic photo showing the southwest corner of New York City’s Central Park 6
So although a map is a picture it is a picture meant to convey specific information like distance direction or elevation Calculating distance is one of the most common uses for a map Maps make this an easy task because they are drawn to scale But what does drawn to scale mean Essentially it means that the place the map shows is a different size than the map This is done for practical reasons A map of the United States that was the exact same size of the United States wouldn’t be very useful To start with you wouldn’t be able to store it anywhere Instead people rely on maps that depict large areas on a smaller scale Maps use a small measurement to depict a larger measurement 1 inch 0 5 mile A road map showing the southwest corner of New York City’s Central Park 7
STEM in Action Have you ever wondered how big the United States is You can find out by using a map Your map of the United States might use a different scale but for the purposes of this example imagine that the scale of the map is 1 inch equals 150 miles Using a ruler find out how many inches there are between the West Coast of the United States and the East Coast Your map might be different but in this case let’s say there are about 18 inches from the West Coast to the East Coast To convert this distance from inches to miles all you have to do is multiply the number of inches by the scale 18 x 150 2,700 So the United States is about 2,700 miles across Now that you know the distance across the United States what about the distance from top to bottom This is a little trickier than measuring the distance across because this time there isn’t a specific stopping point like the Atlantic and Pacific oceans Your answer should be 1,575 8
