Draft: this lesson was written with AI help and has not yet been read by a human editor.
1 What your class asks
This lesson asks you to understand that countries, continents and bodies of water can be shown in different ways, and to find the equator and the two halves of the earth on a globe or a map. The museum offers a medieval map of the world and a description of the equator; your class works with a globe and present-day maps. 1
Curriculum expectations, with their official codes
- B3.1 demonstrate an understanding that there are a variety of countries, continents, physical features, and bodies of water around the world and that their locations can be represented in different ways […]
- B3.2 identify continents, significant bodies of water, the equator, poles, and hemispheres, using a globe, print, digital, or interactive maps, and/or a mapping program
2 The lesson
How can the same world be drawn differently?
Compare a globe, a flat map and a set of small maps. Ask what each shows well and what is hard to see on it.
Where does the earth divide in two?
Find the equator on a globe and say which half is north and which is south.
Go deeper
The preface to al-Idrisi's book says that King Roger wanted to know his lands with certainty 2. The books did not satisfy him, so he questioned those who knew the subject, and then the people who had travelled the lands, together and one by one. What they agreed on he kept, and what they disputed he set aside 3. Then a drawing board was brought, and he tested the distances on it with iron measuring tools. When he was satisfied, he ordered the silver disc 3. This is the story behind al-Idrisi's map of the world.
Think about it
Roger kept what the travellers agreed on and set aside what they disputed. Why might a mapmaker trust a report more when several travellers agree on it than when only one traveller says it?
Into the museum
- Al-Idrisi's world map: the silver disc and the book of seventy maps.
- The equator: the line that divides the earth into two halves.
- Al-Idrisi: the author of the book and the drawer of its maps.
Try this
Read al-Idrisi's world map and the equator. Find the equator on a globe, then name one place north of it and one south of it.
3 Carry it further
Where this lesson leads in the museum.
4 Check yourself
Nothing here is marked or sent anywhere. It is for you.
In your own words: what does Al-Idrisi's world map and the Book of Roger (Tabula Rogeriana) have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
A world on a disc and in a book. In al-Idrisi's account, he made in the middle of the twelfth century for Roger II, king of Sicily, a picture of the whole inhabited world in two parts: a big metal disc engraved with lands, rivers and routes, and a book of seventy maps. How is a disc different from a book of maps?
In your own words: what does The equator have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
The line that halves the earth. Following al-Farghani, the record describes the equator as the circle on the earth that divides it into northern and southern halves. Al-Farghani adds that there the time from sunrise to sunset equals the time from sunset to sunrise on every day of the year. Where would you find this line on a globe?
I can now
Notes
- 1. The Ontario Curriculum: Social Studies, Grades 1 to 6; History and Geography, Grades 7 and 8 (2023)
- 2. Al-Idrisi, Nuzhat al-Mushtaq fi ikhtiraq al-afaq (Cairo: Maktabat al-Thaqafa al-Diniyya, 2002), 2 vols., p. 5
- 3. Al-Idrisi, Nuzhat al-Mushtaq fi ikhtiraq al-afaq (Cairo: Maktabat al-Thaqafa al-Diniyya, 2002), 2 vols., p. 6