NACIS 2016 Presentation Joy Santee, McKendree University This presentation reports how introduction of cartography in general education courses can help university students combat limits of subject-specific thinking and embrace complex interdisciplinary critical thought. In an age where students often resist complex thinking in favor of finding answers through a quick search on their phones, introducing them to maps and cartographic practices can prompt social awareness, problem-solving skills, and citizen-engagement. The presentation begins with a brief overview of how the presenter has introduced cartography in general education courses after developing materials during a National Endowment for the Humanities Seminar. It continues with vignettes of student engagement with maps and ends with a call for cartographers to make their work visible, particularly their decisions about design and content and the social and institutional contexts that impact map-making, so students can use cartography as a way to identify how they can contribute to making the world a better place.

1. Cartographic Curiosity
Promoting Interdisciplinary Thinking
in General Education through Maps
Dr. Joy Santee
Associate Professor of Professional Writing and Rhetoric
McKendree University

2. Kids These Days...

4. Critical Visual Literacy
Interdisciplinarity
Problem Solving

5. Challenges of Critical Visual Literacy
natesilver: So to return to my earlier point: What tangible difference does it make if Clinton wins
nationally by 7 points and wins Arizona by a point, versus when she wins nationally by 7 points but loses
Arizona by a point?
harry: People look to the map to understand how big the victory was. We have a winner-take-all system.
micah: Yeah, if the map everyone sees on Nov. 9 is covered in blue, doesn’t that make a difference?
clare.malone: I think it’s a reasonable goal for them to want to/try to win at least one unexpected state. A
spot of blue in a sea of red can be a striking visual that people walk away with.
natesilver: So should they aim for states that are physically larger because they’re more impressive on the
map?

6. Challenges of Critical Visual Literacy
clare.malone: Hah, yes.
natesilver: So Alaska then?
clare.malone: No.
natesilver: Or not Alaska because it gets shrunken down?
harry: Is this a Mercator problem? I don’t know maps.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/should-clinton-play-for-an-electoral-college-landslide/?ex_cid=2016-
forecast

7. Challenges of Interdisciplinarity

8. Challenges of Contemporary
Problem Solving
Complex problems in corporate, governmental, and
nonprofit sectors require flexible interdisciplinary
and transdisciplinary thinking.

9. Critical Visual Literacy?
Interdisciplinarity?
Problem Solving?
Sounds like a job for MAPS!

10. So What Are My Students Doing?
Exploring: Wildlife corridors, economic impact of
hunting, educational funding
Creating: Cartographic art, campus resources,
propaganda maps for our school
Arguing: That parking isn’t so bad on our campus

11. So What Are My Students Doing?
Exploring: Ethics of disaster tourism, trends in
culinary tourism, boundaries of drone use
Creating: Maps for a children’s book, family
heritage scrapbook, mixtapes of place-based songs
Arguing: For small town travel by mapping
attractions

13. What can Gen Ed instructors do?
● Promote visual literacy through analysis and
critique of cartographic presentations of
information in your field.
● Encourage students to use maps in their
research.
● Reinforce the rhetorical nature of maps by
having them create a map. (Then make them do

14. What can cartographers do?

15. Cartographic Curiosity
Promoting Interdisciplinary Thinking
in General Education through Maps
Dr. Joy Santee
Associate Professor of Professional Writing and Rhetoric
McKendree University