What's Wrong With It?

Look closely at the two photographs below.

Raised relief globe	Flat surface globe

What differences seen when the two types of globes above are compared?

How is the raised relief globe a more accurate model than the flat surface globe?

Look close-up photograph of the raised relief globe below.

Why is this globe not a good model?

Possible model problems:

Each globe is an attempt to show the placement and size of continents in relationship to the entire Earth. When you look closely at the raised relief globe, you see an attempt to demonstrate differences in elevation. Mountains are shown as being raised well above the Earth's surface. While it is true that mountains are higher than the average surface of the Earth, the scale does not match the globe. At the scale of a globe, the entire surface would appear flat. At this scale, when compared with the enormous size of the entire earth, even Mt. Everest would appear flat!

Maps as models:

When you look at a map, you observe relationships between parts of the Earth. Many maps are designed to allow you to place them on a wall. These large maps are very convenient models to use when observing the entire Earth at the same time. The major problem with maps as a model is that it distorts objects.

Remember that the Earth is really round. When you flatten it out into a map form, it stretchs out the poles and these areas appear larger than they really are. In the flat map above, Greenland appears to be about the same size as North America. It is, however, actually much smaller!

The flat map above has elevation shown in it. You see the raised bumps indicating that their is height. The oceans have depressions that show the depths in them. Like the raised relief globe discussed earlier, these elevation areas are not to scale. Even on a large wall map, all mountains would basically appear flat compared to the entire Earth surface.