Geog7 Lab #3

UCLA Undie Run Route and Student Guide to UCLA

View Guide to UCLA and Westwood in a larger map

The purpose of my map is to give prospective students a taste of how a UCLA student typically views and "talks" about the campus. From personal experience, it took me a long time to visualize the places that older students were referring to while using UCLA specific "lingo." This is why I have mapped areas and matched them to the "UCLA lingo" that describes them. An example would be "the hill," which is the term to describe the residential halls, less those in De Neve Plaza. I have also attached a video of how a typical dorm room is like. Another fact that I think prospective students would appreciate is the mapping of famous UCLA traditions such as the route of the Undie Run through campus and the location of the annual 'Spring Sing' event. Especially since the Undie Run is officially banned by the UC Regents, information regarding it is lost through official means such as the UCLA website, and thus students who wish to learn about this banned tradition can learn about it through this map and the video attached to the route. Typically, this type of information is passed on through word of mouth from more senior students to freshmen, but I believe that my mash-up map can help freshmen students fit in and orientate themselves to life on campus faster.

Neogeography is about people creating their own maps on their own terms. These 'user-created' maps celebrate the freedom and creativity of people who wish to share location information with other people, and moreover, unlike traditional maps, neogeography allows the creator of the map to convey a personal viewpoint by letting them choose what to show and how they show it.

The potential that neogeography holds is very high because it can reach a very large audience due to its easy user interface and ease of distribution via the world wide web. The former allows people with no programming experience to still create their own personalized maps and post them on the internet. On the other hand, usersability also became easier, so people who have difficulty understanding official, say, USGS topographical maps, can understand most neogeographic maps. More specifically, neogeography revolutionized sharing locational information by democratizing the monopoly on the mapping process that used to be the realm of the government. Map diversity increased drastically as different content and types of map sprang up from a more diverse group of creators.

The drawback, however, is also linked to its large potential listed above. The ease of creating such maps means that anyone can make their own maps, which brings about the question of authority, quality and accountability. The quantity of maps may be increased, but that say nothing about the quality of maps. People typically should not treat such maps as being very precise, since the creator may well be a child. There is also no accountability or recourse if such maps are indeed inaccurate. Secondly, since creators of such maps choose how and what to present in their maps, audiences should be aware that the context they are being shown may be very subjective and biased.

Some consequences of the rise of neogeography may be that people regard such maps to hold more 'entertainment value' than precise locational value. The audiences attracted by the entertainment factor of such user-created maps can increase their general awareness of geography, learn something from the context shown in the map, while not relying on said map for locational precision and objectivity.

Ming Fai Chan

LAB # 2 Topographic Maps

1. Beverly Hills’ quadrangle

 2.

1=Canoga Park
2=Van Nuys
3=Burbank
4=Topanga
5=Hollywood
6= none (it is the Pacific Ocean)
7=Venice
8=Inglewood

3. 1966

4.NAD27. But NAD83 is also shown.

5. Scale of the map- 1 : 24,000

6.
a)5cm on map = 120,000cm real = 1200 meters
b)5inches on map = 120,000 inches real = 1.89 miles

c)one mile real = x inches on map

1 mile real = 63,360 inches real = 63,360/24,000 = 2.64 inches on map

d) 3 km real = x cm on map?

3km real = 300,000 cm real = 300,000/24,000 = 12.5 cm on map

7. Contour interval on map = 20 feet

8.
a) Public Affairs building
= [34 degrees 04' 28''N, 118 degrees 26' 17''W] or [34.074N, 118.438W]
b) Tip of SM Pier
= [34degrees 01' 18''N,118degrees 29' 55''W] or [34.022N, 118.499W]
c) Upper Franklin Canyon Reservoir
=  [34degrees 7' 12''N, 118degrees 24' 32''W] or [34.12N, 118.409W]

9.
a) 560 feet
b) 140 feet
c) 700 feet

10. Beverly Hills is in zone 11N of the UTM system

11. 3763000mN, 361450mE

12. 1000m * 1000m = 1,000,000m2

13.

14. Magnetic declination = 14 degrees East

15. Water flows from North to South.

16.