Flow Map- How to get ready for school

A flow map, like the one above is a map simply depicting a flow or progressive movement.  A flow map starts with a central point, and ideas or steps stem from the central point, and begin to flow and build on each other to reach a final product.  This map shows the flow of a student's morning at Frankley School.  It begins with the central point of waking up at 7: 15 am, and flows through a series of steps until the final product is reached.  In this case the final product is arriving at school.http://frankley.school.nz/uploads/images/flowmap_lge.jpg

Box Plot

This is a box plot, or a box and whisker plot.  In this case, the data being measured is the essay scores of a control group, and an experimental group.  The boxes show where most of the data falls.  For example, the blue box in the Ed tech Science category shows that most test takers in the control group scored between 1.00 and 3.00 with 2.00 being most common.  The outlier data, or whiskers show that although the majority scored between 1.00 and 3.00, some test takers scored as low as 0.00, and as high as 5.00.  Therefore, a box plot is a useful visual tool to display a data set.
http://www.etips.info/papers/2experimental.html

Cartogram- GDP per capita of the world.

This map represents a cartogram.  The boundaries of a cartogram are exaggerated to show a relationship between the data as to which boundary has more or less of something.  In this cartogram, the world is shown, and the countries with the highest GDP per capita are enlarged, and colored red.  The countries with the least GDP per capita are downsized and colored blue.  As you can see, the United States is greatly exaggerated and takes up more land area than South America, Australia, Japan, and South Korea combined.  This is obviously not true, but gets the point across that the U.S. is a strong economic country.http://ibgeog2009.wikispaces.com/Economic_Interactions

PLSS map of FL, AL, LA

The map above illustrates the Public Land Survey System.  PLSS is a useful way to subdivide land into plots for ownership purposes. Each red square on the map represents a township, which is 6 miles wide by 6 miles wide.  Each township is then subdivided again into 36 equal sections, measuring 1 mile by 1 mile.  This individual map shows  how land is divided in the Florida panhandle, Alabama, and Louisiana.  The purple outline represents Franklin county, Alabama.http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~alfrankl/landrecords.htm

Bilateral Graph

This is an example of a bilateral graph.  A bilateral graph can show 2 or more different sets of data on the same graph.   This graph shows trade of clean energy products between the United States and China.  The blue bars indicate exports, while the white bars indicate imports.  The red bars show the trade deficit.  It  is clear, that the US has been importing far more clean energy products than it has exported from 2006 to 2010.
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/10/china-and-international-rules-self-interested-or-malign/64747/

LIDAR- Ground Zero

Lidar, stands for Light detection and ranging.  Lidar maps  are a good way to show elevation without using direct photography.  Buildings can be shown, as one side of the building lies in shadow and can be depicted by lidar.  This is a before and after lidar image of ground zero in NYC.  You can seethe two towers in the first image, and the absence of them in the second replaced with piles of rubble.http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/911/911-maps.html

Wind Rose Map

The image above is a wind rose.  A wind rose is a useful tool for  meteorologists and forecasters,  interested in wind patterns for certain areas at certain times.  It is a circular plot, meant to be inset over a compass.  Each orbital represents a higher frequency of wind, with the center being zero.  The shading is meant to show direction the wind is blowing from. with the center being the originhttp://www.kids.esdb.bg/wind.html

Mental Map of Disney

This is a mental map of Disney's Magic Kingdom.  A mental map is  a map drawn of a certain area as to give the viewer a vague sense of directionality, and the location of important landmarks, (in this case the various attractions around disney) but generally mental maps are not drawn to scale, and landmarks are not drawn to proportion.  http://www.wdwtourguide.com/Disney-World-Park-Magic-Kingdom.html

Stem and Leaf plot

A stem and leaf plot is a visually appealing way of showing a  fairly large numerical data set.  The stem, represents a defined group of leaves, or the individual pieces of data.  This stem and leaf plot shows the heart rate of 21 students after 1 minute of jumping jacks.  each stem defines 10  units of heart rate, starting at 60 and ending at 150.  As you can tell, the majority of student heart rates fall between 80 and 120 beats per minute

http://www.geo.utexas.edu/faculty/barker/kempter/rbtephra.html

Isopach map- Volcanoes

This isopach map depicts the Rio Blanco tephra volcanic crater.   The  volcano has erupted, and the isopachs (connected circular lines) mark the extent of the ash and debris.  The smaller, brighter isopachs indicate areas closest to the eruption center, where there will most likely be heavy ash and debris.  The farther, wider Isopachs indicate areas where the eruption might reach, but the particulates and ash from the volcano not be very thick.  These maps account for environmental conditions like wind, rain, etc.http://www.geo.utexas.edu/faculty/barker/kempter/rbtephra.html

Climograph-Lincoln, NE

The image above is a visual aid known as a climograph.  Climographs depict yearly averages like temperature and precipitation on a monthly basis.  This graph draw's its averages from a 30 year data set, as to not be bias toward any particular year.  This graph shows a sharp increase in temperature during the summer months, corresponding with an increase in the amount of precipitation during the same season.http://snr.unl.edu/data/climate/moisture.asp

Thematic map depicting population in the Eastern U.S.

This image is that of a thematic map.  A thematic map is a tool that lets us view data (such as population data from the U.S. census bureau) graphically.  This thematic map gives us the median age of nearly half the states in the country as was reported through the 2000 census.  It is interesting to note that Florida is the lone southern state to have a median age above 37.1.http://www.lib.wsc.ma.edu/censusaff.htm

Topographic map of the Adirondacks

This is a topographic map of a region in the Adirondack mountains.  Though the map is flat, we are able to visualize the topography of the land thanks to contouring.  Each line on the map represents a contour line.  The circles in the middle mark mountain peaks, and each surrounding contour marks a rise or fall in elevation.  Lines that are very close together indicate steep elevation, whereas lines that are farther apart represent a gentle downslope.  The main contour lines are marked with a number indicating elevation of that point in feet.
http://www.adirondacknorthway.net/mappages/mount_marcytopo.php

Infrared satellite imagery of Hurricane Katrina

This is a map of hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico, as seen from an infrared satellite.  Infrared  satellite senses temperatures at surface level and temperatures of cloud tops.  The colder cloud tops are returned as lighter colors.  This signals higher, thicker, more intense cloud tops.  As the clouds warm and become thinner, the reflectivity fades from the bright whites, to red and green as seen form this image.  Infrared radar can have many different color schemes, this is just one.
http://saams.com/Katrina/Katrina.htm

Population profile of Blacksburg Virginia

This is a population profile map of Blacksburg, Virginia.  It is represented as a pie chart, and puts population data into viewable information.  The more numbers a certain age group had at the time, the larger the piece of pie became.  Besides serving as just a visual aid, the percent of the total population each age group comprises is overlain onto the map.  This type of map can be a useful tools to planners, advertisers, and marketers when deciding how to cater to a certain town.
http://www.blacksburgpartnership.org/demographics.html

Map overlain with Doppler Radar

This is a map of the Texas coastline at the time of a landfalling hurricane.  Doppler Radar allows us to see the structure and the intensity of the precipitation.  The radar returns brighter colors based on how heavy the objects it projects off of are.  Therefore, heavy rain comes through as yellow and orange, while lighter rain is generally a green to light green color.  Note the eye of the hurricane is being depicted very well by the radar.
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories/s1192.htm

Star plot of stars in relation to the sun

The figure shown above is a map of the stars in relation to the sun.  The yellow ball in the center is the sun, and the stars are marked on the orbitals surrounding the sun.  The farther a star is from the center, the farther it is from the sun.  This is a good way of giving a spatial description of a part of the solar system we can not see.
http://lifeng.lamost.org/courses/astrotoday/CHAISSON/NAV/FRAMESET/FRAME17/IDX17-01.HTM

Isobar map conveying areas of low pressure around Europe.

This map shows us the isobars associated with low pressure.  Isobars are lines of equal pressure, and the tighter the gradient between them, the windier it is.  Strong low pressure systems tend to have a tighter pressure gradient between the isobars.  This can be seen on this map as the 990 mb low has much tighter lines than the 1005 mb low.
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.malagawetter.de/karten/fronten_gross.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.malagaweather.com/wellen.html&usg=__GHqH7ze82g31VVOoY_snTHcc-Po=&h=550&w=750&sz=43&hl=en&start=91&sig2=YmwyvezWs06WtNEIycvxtA&zoom=1&tbnid=tdx1bCrkgLlr7M:&tbnh=136&tbnw=185&ei=ZtLgTPC6FoGingflt_WhDw&prev=/images%3Fq%3DIsobar%2Bmap%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26newwindow%3D1%26safe%3Doff%26client%3Dsafari%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Den%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D604%26tbs%3Disch:10%2C2380&um=1&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=138&oei=QtLgTI7uFIH-8AaBmbGDDw&esq=7&page=6&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:6,s:91&tx=7&ty=59&biw=1280&bih=604