Classroom
Beyond Boundaries
Students chart a course for the future of cartography.
Mapmaking is an ancient art and science that dates back to the dawn of civilization, but at the University of Wisconsin, it uses cutting-edge technology. Cartography is advancing at warp speed, and today’s geography students use state-of-the-art graphic design software to represent complex data in digital maps. But assistant professor Mark Harrower wants his students to remember the discipline’s roots while learning the newest techniques.
Modern maps are designed on desktop computers rather than scrawled on scrolls, but today, these budding cartographers learn a history lesson by putting pen to paper. The assignment sounds simple enough — take a five-inch square map of a fictional countryside, complete with two towns, a railroad, a river, and a bay — and draw it in a three-inch square. But as the students in Geography 572: GraphicDesign in Cartography pore intently over their sketches, they discover that it will be a real challenge to fit the details, such as bends in the river and lengthy road names, into this tiny space.
Mapmaking is an ancient art and science that dates back to the dawn of civilization, but at the University of Wisconsin, it uses cutting-edge technology. Cartography is advancing at warp speed, and today’s geography students use state-of-the-art graphic design software to represent complex data in digital maps. But assistant professor Mark Harrower wants his students to remember the discipline’s roots while learning the newest techniques.
Modern maps are designed on desktop computers rather than scrawled on scrolls, but today, these budding cartographers learn a history lesson by putting pen to paper. The assignment sounds simple enough — take a five-inch square map of a fictional countryside, complete with two towns, a railroad, a river, and a bay — and draw it in a three-inch square. But as the students in Geography 572: GraphicDesign in Cartography pore intently over their sketches, they discover that it will be a real challenge to fit the details, such as bends in the river and lengthy road names, into this tiny space.
“I worry that designers get lazy because [today’s] software is so powerful,” says Harrower. “I want them to understand how they’d do the work, even if the tools weren’t there.”
Harrower teaches his students more than just the principles of beautiful design, because maps are useless unless they’re functional. A weather map, for instance, should offer different information than a map of Camp Randall Stadium. A goal of the course is to train students to distinguish a good map from a poor one and be able to intelligently critique the work of their peers.
Most of these students will go on to become professional mapmakers, so Harrower also teaches them how to effectively use design programs like Adobe Illustrator so they’ll be prepared to enter the job market. Having been a freelance cartographer before entering academia, Harrower knows how to develop assignments that will prepare students for the real world. He’s applying many of the principles he teaches in his work on the University of Wisconsin’s Campus Map Project, which uses aerial photos to produce three-dimensional models of buildings to help make future planning more efficient.
Harrower teaches his students more than just the principles of beautiful design, because maps are useless unless they’re functional. A weather map, for instance, should offer different information than a map of Camp Randall Stadium. A goal of the course is to train students to distinguish a good map from a poor one and be able to intelligently critique the work of their peers.
Most of these students will go on to become professional mapmakers, so Harrower also teaches them how to effectively use design programs like Adobe Illustrator so they’ll be prepared to enter the job market. Having been a freelance cartographer before entering academia, Harrower knows how to develop assignments that will prepare students for the real world. He’s applying many of the principles he teaches in his work on the University of Wisconsin’s Campus Map Project, which uses aerial photos to produce three-dimensional models of buildings to help make future planning more efficient.
“We really let the students struggle with realistic scenarios,” says Harrower. “We’re trying to simulate that experience of what it’s like to work for Newsweek or TIME magazine, where truly you’ve got thirty-six hours to create a map for a breaking story. You’ve got lousy data, but you know what? That’s life. So you learn how to deal with that.”
These real-world scenarios carry over to the lab, where students are working to improve a digital map of New Orleans. Starting with the roughly drawn map downloaded from Google, their job is to make a more legible version using Illustrator, and it has to be pared down to a five-inch square. Seems like a simple task, but it’s deceptively difficult. Essentially, the students have to decide what elements to keep, such as roads, buildings, and other landmarks, and how to illustrate them so that a casual visitor could understand. Once that’s done, they begin using Illustrator to create an original map, and each student has his or her own take on how it should be done.
These real-world scenarios carry over to the lab, where students are working to improve a digital map of New Orleans. Starting with the roughly drawn map downloaded from Google, their job is to make a more legible version using Illustrator, and it has to be pared down to a five-inch square. Seems like a simple task, but it’s deceptively difficult. Essentially, the students have to decide what elements to keep, such as roads, buildings, and other landmarks, and how to illustrate them so that a casual visitor could understand. Once that’s done, they begin using Illustrator to create an original map, and each student has his or her own take on how it should be done.
To get ideas flowing, the students pair up to critique each other’s designs. Today, Jesse Papez x’07, a geology and cartography student, works with Jon Camp x’07, a landscape architecture major. Papez has designed a tourist map of the city, complete with the locations of golf courses, parks, and other attractions. Because he’s making it for a guide book, he hasn’t included a lot of street names.
“With a map, you only get one chance, and you don’t get to explain it,” says Papez. “You have to make sure that it doesn’t confuse the person who’s reading it.”
Camp’s version, which is meant to be used for navigation, is much more detailed. It includes hundreds of tiny lines that represent the streets that crisscross the city. As the two give each other pointers, they talk about how much they learn each time they attend a lecture. Harrower infuses his class with examples of work from magazines, newspapers, and even interactive online maps like Mapquest to challenge his students to think about what they’re trying to achieve through their designs.
“With a map, you only get one chance, and you don’t get to explain it,” says Papez. “You have to make sure that it doesn’t confuse the person who’s reading it.”
Camp’s version, which is meant to be used for navigation, is much more detailed. It includes hundreds of tiny lines that represent the streets that crisscross the city. As the two give each other pointers, they talk about how much they learn each time they attend a lecture. Harrower infuses his class with examples of work from magazines, newspapers, and even interactive online maps like Mapquest to challenge his students to think about what they’re trying to achieve through their designs.
“You have this idea about how to make your map, and then you go to class and you think, ‘Oh, well, now that I look at it this way, I’m going to start all over,’” says Camp.
— Erin Hueffner ’00
— Erin Hueffner ’00
CLASS NOTE - Living (Room) Laboratory
Environment, Textiles, and Design 630: Housing Environments for Older People
To sum up Professor Michael Hunt’s class in five words: there’s no place like home. This is the principle that he works so hard to instill in his students. If they want to find out how to design appropriate homes for older people, they need to get out of the classroom and spend some time where older people live.
Each week, he takes this seminar’s ten students off campus and onto the site of Madison’s Oakwood Village retirement community, which is currently building a new, eight-story, independent-living facility. There they meet with residents, staff, architects, and representatives of the construction company to talk about the theory and practice of building successful, functioning homes for the elderly.
To sum up Professor Michael Hunt’s class in five words: there’s no place like home. This is the principle that he works so hard to instill in his students. If they want to find out how to design appropriate homes for older people, they need to get out of the classroom and spend some time where older people live.
Each week, he takes this seminar’s ten students off campus and onto the site of Madison’s Oakwood Village retirement community, which is currently building a new, eight-story, independent-living facility. There they meet with residents, staff, architects, and representatives of the construction company to talk about the theory and practice of building successful, functioning homes for the elderly.
“They’re really terrific with us,” says Hunt. “It could certainly be awkward, having a bunch of students give feedback to these professionals, but they’re very good about listening to our ideas and telling us why they agree or disagree with them.”
Though most of the students are majoring in interior design, some are studying issues to do with aging or with urban planning. But their work at Oakwood is about more than creating visually pleasing rooms. They try to find ways to make the facility fit the physical and social needs of its population, while keeping the cost of its construction within budget.
“We’re basically consultants for Oakwood,” says Hunt. “And that’s fun, both for me and for the students. They get a chance to be in a real-life situation, making proposals to architects and builders and selling their ideas. And Oakwood Village gets a team of consultants to look at their work from a theoretical perspective.”
— John Allen
Though most of the students are majoring in interior design, some are studying issues to do with aging or with urban planning. But their work at Oakwood is about more than creating visually pleasing rooms. They try to find ways to make the facility fit the physical and social needs of its population, while keeping the cost of its construction within budget.
“We’re basically consultants for Oakwood,” says Hunt. “And that’s fun, both for me and for the students. They get a chance to be in a real-life situation, making proposals to architects and builders and selling their ideas. And Oakwood Village gets a team of consultants to look at their work from a theoretical perspective.”
— John Allen
Extra Credit
Fruits aweigh! Horticulture students Kris Schmidt-Stumpf x’07 and Calvin Lietzow x’07 saw their work launched on Lake Mendota in October, when the UW held its first Giant Pumpkin Regatta. The event, organized by professors Jim Nienhuis and Irwin Goldman, took pumpkins that Schmidt-Stumpf and Lietzow had grown for Horticulture 370: World Vegetables (even though a pumpkin is technically a fruit), and used them as watercraft. Students paddled the big ol’ squash in a race between Union Pier and the Hoofers’ pier at the Memorial Union Terrace. The regatta proved a little too popular, however — such a large crowd gathered that it collapsed sections of the Hoofers’ pier.
Musician and music instructor Scott Wenzel has launched a new online course, World Music: Soundscapes in a Changing World. Wenzel teaches ethnomusicology at the UW and at Milwaukee’s Cardinal Stritch University. The ten-unit course explores the social and cultural settings of music in everyday life.
The schools of medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and veterinary medicine have joined forces to create a new Center for Global Health. Believed to be the first center to combine these four disciplines, the unit will pursue a mission of developing and supporting worldwide health education and research. Its director is family medicine professor Cynthia Haq.
Musician and music instructor Scott Wenzel has launched a new online course, World Music: Soundscapes in a Changing World. Wenzel teaches ethnomusicology at the UW and at Milwaukee’s Cardinal Stritch University. The ten-unit course explores the social and cultural settings of music in everyday life.
The schools of medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and veterinary medicine have joined forces to create a new Center for Global Health. Believed to be the first center to combine these four disciplines, the unit will pursue a mission of developing and supporting worldwide health education and research. Its director is family medicine professor Cynthia Haq.
