The objective of this lab was to “improve [our] conceptual understanding of Map Projections . . . using Geographic Information System to transform the world from one map projection into another.”

For the first map application (North America Equidistant Conic) – One of the requirements for this map application was to choose a projection to look like “a little globe” and “show the route”. The (Sphere) Robinson Projection is a compromise projection, hence it does not preserve any properties. The best projection for this map application would be an azimuthal equidistant projection because both distance and direction are accurate from the central point. What I could’ve done differently is not moving the central meridian to 74^o W (Bogota) or 76^o W (Baltimore) to maintain an accuracy (distance measurement) between these two cities, and adjust the latitude of origin (point of tangency) to the location of Bogota (5^o N) or Baltimore (39^o N).

For the second map application (South Pole Azimuthal Equidistant) – the projection property was missing, and although my justification was correct, it is not clearly reflected by the Tossot Ellipses shown on the map.

For the third map application (Sphere Mollweide) – this needed an equal area projection despite that Mollweide is an equal-area projection, it distorted the shape of the U.S. What could’ve been done differently is adjusting the central meridian.

For the fourth map application (Cylindrical Equal Area World) – The purpose is to ‘generate a world map projection that does not distort areas.’ however, the map should’ve shown the whole world, not just the U.S. It was also missing the projection property. Another mistake is that the Cylindrical projection greatly distorts areas in the high latitudes.  To fix this, I could’ve tried other projections that also preserve shape & area, i.e., Pseudocylindrical equal-area projection -> Sinusoidal projection, homolosine projection, etc.

For the fifth map application (Sphere Wagner V) – It needed a compromise projection such as Sphere Robinson Projection, which does not preserve properties but gives an appealing look for the audience.

For the sixth map application (Sinusoidal World) – The purpose of this application was to show the weirdest projection but my justification didn’t really serve that purpose.

Overall, this lab was one of the challenging tasks I’ve had because while map projections are not my forte, I tried my best to fulfill the objective as best as I could and as much I know/learned about map projections.