Worldmapper - a New way to look at the world

Worldmapper is a unique tool that is perfect for Social Studies. Worldmapper is a collection of world maps, where territories are re-sized on each map according to the subject of interest.

It would fit in perfectly in several areas of Social Studies 10.

For example in Unit 2: Economic Decision Making students learn several this in section including the Problem of Distributing Wealth.

• This map shows "Often Preventable Deaths"
  
  In rich territories, deaths from most of these conditions are much lower except for infections in the elderly. For this reason they can be considered easily preventable conditions.
  These conditions are divided into (with their contribution to the total deaths in Group I in 2002):
  A. Infections [Infectious and parasitic diseases], Map 372, (59% of deaths). These are diseases spread directly or indirectly from person to person.
  B. Respiratory infections, Map 403, (22% of deaths). These are infections of the ears and respiratory tract.
  C. Maternal conditions, Map 407, (3% of deaths). These are conditions affecting women before, during and after childbirth.
  D. Perinatal conditions, Map 408, (13% of deaths). These are conditions arising in babies before or within one week of birth.
  E. Nutritional deficiencies, Map 411,(3% of deaths). These are conditions due to food, vitamin and mineral shortages.
  These conditions caused 32% of all deaths worldwide in 2002, an average of 2968 deaths per million people
  

Territories are sized in proportion to the absolute number of people who died from most preventable (communicable infections, maternal, perinatal and nutritional conditions) in one year.

(all text was taken directly from worldmapper)

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The above map can be used to illustrate a variety of things including: which countries have money, who can afford to spend money on heath care but it can also be used as a starting point for other areas such as causes of death and so on that are related to Economic decision making in the Social Studies curriculum.

Worldmapper has a huge selection of maps (there are 366 in total) and there are often links with each map to guide research further or take the student in a whole new direction.

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Other areas that WorldMapper could be used in are Defining an Acceptable Standard of Living, Generating Wealth to Support A Living Standard and Organizing an Economy to Create Wealth from Unit 2 alone. These maps can be used troughout all levels of Social Studies and even in certain history areas.

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I think this would help improve student learning in a variety of ways:

1. These maps are saveable and can be printed if computer labs are unavailable to students.
2. They are an interesting and visually appealing way to get students looking at things from a perspective they may not have considered.
3. They are probably something new to the students in format and idea so hopefully they would be intrigued by them
4. Because it is arguably a fun way to look at things the students might have more interest in doing their homework. I have not yet tried these in a Social Studies environment but a fellow classmate did and he said his students loved them and used them on a variety of projects throughout his internship.