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When it was drawn, who drew it, what one centimeter stands for, and what it leaves out — the six things a map should say.
Paper packet. Every task here also exists on screen, where it is checked automatically; answers written on paper are not assessed by Nydus. When you are back at a device, enter your answers there.
You will look for the six things a map says about itself, and work out which of them settles a question you have about the map.
A map is somebody's drawing of a place, made on a day, for a reason. None of those three things shows up in the drawing, so a map that does not say them leaves you guessing. Here is what this course's five maps say about themselves. You can ask the same six questions of any map you meet.
Oakfield Park, Kestrel Island and Barrow are invented, and so is every building on them. That is not laziness. Real maps carry real borders, and some of those borders are argued over by the people who live on either side of them. A course that asked you to click the right answer would be telling you that one side is right. So the places you practice on are made up, and the argument is left for the day you are ready to study it rather than settled behind your back.
You have used these five maps for thirteen lessons: read their keys, followed their arrows, counted their squares and measured against their scale bars. This lesson asks the maps the questions you have been asking the ground. You will also subtract years to find how old something is.
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Date | The day or year a map was drawn. |
| Maker | Whoever drew the map, and decided what to put on it. |
| Scale | What one centimeter on the map stands for on the ground. |
| Boundary | A line drawn to say where one place stops and another starts. |
| Out of date | True once and not now, which is different from wrong. |
A map is not a photograph of the world. It is somebody's drawing, made on a day, for a reason, and none of those three things shows up in the drawing itself. So a map that is any use says them in writing, usually in small print along an edge.
Six things are worth looking for. When it was drawn, so you can tell out-of-date from wrong. How the round Earth was flattened, because a ball cannot be laid flat without something being pulled out of shape. What one centimeter stands for, or nothing on it can be measured. Who made it, which tells you what it was made to show. Which lines are boundaries, and whether anybody argues about them. And what it says for somebody who cannot see it, because a map nobody can read is not a map for everybody.
The register you have just opened asks those six at the top, and then answers them one map at a time for all five maps in this course.
Another way: story
It is the same question you ask about anything somebody tells you: how do you know, and when did you find out? A map that answers those without being asked is a map worth having.
Another way: example
Two maps of one town disagree about a road. Neither is lying. One was drawn before the road was built, and the only way to know which is that both printed their dates.
Create a plan of a familiar room, playground or nearby public place from safe observations, or use this invented place: a rectangular garden 30 meters east-west and 20 meters north-south; entrance at the southwest corner; shed at the northwest corner; pond in the northeast quarter; a path follows the south edge and then the east edge. Choose a visitor's question, such as how to reach the shed without crossing the pond. Make the map on paper, with tactile pieces or with a drawing tool. Draw from above, supply a key and a north arrow, and mark physical and human features. Use 1 cm for 5 meters if drawing the invented garden: its outer rectangle is 6 cm by 4 cm. For your own place, use checked measurements or label it a sketch not suitable for measuring distance. Do not invent a precise scale for guessed lengths. Add a date, maker, evidence source and a note about what you left out.
Explain how your selected features answer the visitor's question. Describe one route, its orientation and any access information you would still need. Give a written or spoken account of what was observed, measured, supplied or guessed. For the invented garden, do not promise the eastern path reaches the shed: the supplied notes do not say so. Ask a partner to use the key to find a named place and trace a possible route. Compare their interpretation with your intention. Revise one unclear symbol, route or evidence note, and say what you changed. Producing and explaining this original map is a human-reviewed performance. Passing the short map-reading questions does not certify that you completed it.
A teacher or other human reviewer scores each row 0 (missing or misleading), 1 (partly correct; needs a named correction), or 2 (accurate and explained). Plan and location: footprints and relative positions match the observations or supplied garden. Key and orientation: symbols have meanings and the north arrow agrees with the route description. Scale and limits: a measured distance converts correctly, or an unmeasured sketch is honestly labeled; the learner explains what cannot be measured. Evidence and purpose: a geographical question, dated sources, physical and human features, and an explained omission support the answer. Communication and revision: a reader can locate a feature, and the learner records feedback and a reasoned change. The task is ready only when every row earns 2; revise the named gaps otherwise. Record reviewer, date and comments on the learner's work. This rubric is an assignment, not a record of approval.
Here are the six things a good map says about itself, and what each one lets you do.
| The map says | So you can |
|---|---|
| when it was drawn | tell old from wrong |
| how the Earth was flattened | know which shapes are stretched |
| its scale | measure distances |
| who made it | know what it was made to show |
| which lines are boundaries | know which are disputed |
| what it says for people who cannot see it | share it with everybody |
None of the six can be found by looking harder at the picture.
A printed date lets you count. If a map was drawn in 1990 and you are reading it in 2026, it is 2026 minus 1990, which is 36 years old. A lot can be built in 36 years.
If a new road opened in 2015, that was 2015 minus 1990, which is 25 years after the map was drawn. So the road cannot be on the map, and now you know why.
A map shows the ground as it was on the day somebody drew it. When a new school or road is built afterward, the old map does not change. It becomes out of date.
Out of date is different from wrong. A wrong map drew something that was never there. An out-of-date map drew what was there, and the world moved on. The fix for an old map is a newer map.
Every map is made by somebody for a reason. A bus company's map shows bus routes. A park's map shows trails and restrooms. A real estate map shows lots for sale.
Knowing who made a map tells you what it was made to show, and so what it probably left out. It also tells you who to ask if something on it seems strange.
When a date is missing, you can sometimes work one out from what the map shows. If one map has fields where another has houses, the one with fields is older. If a map shows a road you know opened in 2015, it was drawn in 2015 or later.
Historians date old maps this way all the time. But it is slow, and it gives a range rather than a year. A printed date saves all that work.
Some people cannot see a map's picture. A good map also comes with words that describe what it shows, so a screen reader can read it aloud, or with raised lines that fingers can feel.
Every map in this course has such a description, and the register says what it is. A map that only works for people who can see it is not yet a map for everybody.
Checking an answer. If something you expected is missing, ask first whether the map is older than that thing, before deciding the map is wrong.
Looking at the small print first is sensible because the picture cannot tell you when, who or how far. Subtracting years is allowed because the difference between two years is the time that passed between them.
Deciding what to trust a map for is required, not rude: every map is somebody's drawing of a day, and knowing which day and whose drawing is what lets you use it well.
The most common slip is calling an old map wrong. Another is guessing a scale from the size of the paper.
A third is throwing away a map because it has no date; it can still be studied, just not trusted as current. A fourth is subtracting the wrong way around, which gives a nonsense negative age.
The Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., holds one of the largest map collections in the world, more than five million maps. Some were drawn by George Washington, who worked as a surveyor as a young man. Anyone can look at many of them online.
Librarians record the six questions for every map they can: when it was made, who made it, what scale it uses, and what it shows. When a date is missing, they work it out from clues, the way this lesson does: which towns and roads are on it, which are not yet, and what the paper and printing look like.
Historians use these maps as evidence of the past. A map of Chicago from 1850 shows a small city beside the lake; one from 1900 shows it many times bigger. Neither is wrong about today. Each is right about its own day, and the dates turn a pile of old maps into a story of how a place grew.
Maps go out of date constantly. Across the United States, new roads, neighborhoods and schools are built every year, and old ones close. The U.S. Geological Survey updates its maps of the country on a regular cycle, and each new sheet prints its date, so users know which version they hold.
Mapping apps update even faster, but they still have dates behind the scenes. A driver whose app says to turn onto a road that closed last month has met an out-of-date map: it was right when made, and the ground changed.
That is why emergency services, delivery companies and park rangers check the date on their maps before relying on them. A firefighter heading to a new neighborhood needs a map drawn after the houses were built. Subtracting the map's year from this year is the first check, and it takes only a second.
The first is treating an old map as a mistaken one. A map is a picture of a day. If something was built afterward it is not on the map, and nobody erred; the fix is a newer map, not a complaint.
The second is guessing a scale from the size of the paper. Two maps printed the same size can cover a park and a continent. If there is no scale bar and no scale sentence, there is no scale, and no distance on that sheet means anything.
The third is thinking that a map without these things is worthless. It is not; it is simply a map you cannot check. Old undated maps are studied carefully all the time, as evidence of what somebody once drew, which is a different thing from evidence about the ground today.
A town map says it was drawn in 1990. Find the date first.
$1990$
Look along the edge.
The road opened in 2015. Compare the years.
$1990 < 2015$
The map came first.
Say what that means.
$\text{nothing to draw in 1990}$
The road did not exist.
Name the map.
$\text{old, not wrong}$
The date tells you which.
A map has no scale bar. Say what you lose.
$\text{measuring}$
No length has a meaning.
It has no date. Say what you lose.
$\text{knowing if it is current}$
It could be very old.
It has no maker. Say what you lose.
$\text{knowing its purpose}$
What was it made to show?
Say what you keep.
$\text{a drawing somebody made}$
Still worth studying.
Decide how to use it.
$\text{enjoy, do not rely on}$
Worth having, not worth trusting.
A map was drawn in $1990$. You read it in $2026$. Find its age.
$2026 - 1990 = 36$
Years since it was drawn.
A road opened in $2015$. Find the years after the map.
$2015 - 1990 = 25$
The road came later.
Find how long the road has been open.
$2026 - 2015 = 11$
Years of the road.
Check the pieces add up.
$25 + 11 = 36$
Map to road, road to now.
Say whether the road is on the map.
$\text{no}$
It was built afterward.
Say what the map needs.
$\text{a newer version}$
Old is fixed by new.
Say what a scale bar gives.
$\text{a meaning for lengths}$
Paper into ground.
Say what is lost without it.
$\text{measuring distances}$
No length means anything.
Say what still works.
A map ought to say these things about itself. Match each one to the question it answers.
| which shapes on it are stretched? | how much ground does one centimeter stand for? | who decided what to put on it? | |
|---|---|---|---|
| how the round Earth was flattened | |||
| the scale | |||
| who made it |
Complete the worked solution: a town map says it was drawn in $1978$. A new road opened in $2003$, and you are reading the map in $2023$. How old is the map, and how many years after it was drawn did the road open?
Find the map's age.
$\text{this year} - \text{year drawn} =$ a
Years since it was drawn.
Find the years before the road.
$\text{road year} - \text{year drawn} =$ g
How long after the map.
Say whether the road is on it.
$\text{no: built afterward}$
The map is older than the road.
Say what made this possible.
$\text{the printed date}$
Without it, no arithmetic.
You find a beautiful old map of a coastline. It has no date on it, no name of a mapmaker, and no scale bar. What can you honestly do with it?
A map of a town says at the bottom that it was drawn in 1990. A new road around the town opened in 2015. Somebody looks for that road on the map and cannot find it. What has happened?
Four maps of the same town were found in a drawer with their dates torn off. Put them in order, oldest first, using what is on each one.
Number the steps in order (write the number in the box):
The register says the plan of Oakfield Park carries both a north arrow and a scale bar whose two steps stand for 100 m each. Click **both** of the marks printed beside the park that make those two claims: the one that says which way, and the one that says how far.
This task has no paper form; do it on a device.
Three things you want to know about a map you have just been handed. Which part of what the map says about itself settles each one?
| What settles it | |
|---|---|
| The school that opened last year is not on it. | |
| It draws bus routes but names no streets. | |
| You want to know how long the walk is. |
A visitor asks whether an invented park's mapped path is usable with a stroller today. The map is 6 years old and has a key, north arrow and scale, but no information about steps, surface or closures. Read the field-note analysis below. Select the observation exposing the evidence gap, the relevant way to fill it, AND the justified limit on the old map. Leave unsupported claims unmarked.
This task has no paper form; do it on a device.
Lesson test: one question per skill, one attempt each, no hints. Your answers are checked when you submit.
An invented town map was drawn in 2004. A new footbridge opened in 2011, and a visitor checks the unchanged map in 2018. Complete the timeline table. The bridge is absent from the old map: compare its opening with both the map date and the visit date before deciding whether that absence is useful evidence.
| Elapsed years | |
|---|---|
| Bridge opened this many years after map was drawn | |
| Map is this many years old at the visit |
You can ask a map about itself. Tell somebody the difference between a map that is wrong and a map that is out of date, and how you would tell which you had.
24. Your turn: a map has everything except a scale bar. What can you no longer do with it?, step 3
$\text{direction and the key}$
The arrow and symbols remain.