Abstract:

The up-to-date challenges/opportunities of cartography can be illustrated conceptually and practically. Conceptually speaking, the use of maps is dis-professionalising and increasingly becomes a skill of everyday living. Cartography in this regard is not just to present spatial information but also to facilitate broader communication and collaboration. Practically speaking, the growth of ICT techniques enriches the way of data collection. Personal feelings, i.e., perceptions, can be generated into a map layer added on the existing knowledge of places.

This study converts a social experiment of applied cartography in education. It focuses on the collection of digital data – both subjectively and objectively – and the visualisation of data in maps. The assessment is drawn in the class of Cartography. About 50 of the students participate the assessment. All of them have sufficient trainings and quality to participate. The assessment tools are twofold: the Cityprobe app, a team-developed IOT application, is used for subjective data collection. It provides rooms for students to record, score and take notes concerning their owned environmental perceptions. The black-bulb thermometer is used for objective data collection, i.e., outdoor temperature and the Wet-bulb globe temperature (WBGT) that examine the possible occurrences of heat stroke.

The assessment sets a prior focus on the issue of thermal comfort. We arrange three times of field work in along the coast, where the weather is often recognised as ‘unpleasant’ in this season, and aimed to examine the interrelations between perceptions (subjective data) and temperature (both outdoor temperature and WBGT carry the objective data). The participants are also trained to present their collected data not only in tables but also in maps for data visualisation and representations.

Our fruitful results show a success of cartography class. Most of the participants are satisfied by having sufficient knowledge from data collection to representation and examination. The way of training also shows a possibility to reflect the up-to-date challenge of cartography in education. The collaborative results also reflect to the mission of cartography in collaboration and communication. This in principle can help to reach and reshape today’s teaching in cartography.

Keywords:

Cartography, Cityprobe, WBGT, thermal comfort, the western coast of Taiwan.