topography

I love topographical representations; two-dimensional maps, three-dimensional structures, etc. My advisor at Lamont has worked a lot on answering the question of how people interpret spatial representations of the natural world--how do we read maps? Why is easy for some people to translate lines and marks into hills and mountains and valleys, and why is it hard for others to do so?

Spatial reasoning ability in a population, like other basic skills or abilities, falls out in a normal distribution. Unlike with basic math or reading, though, there are very few systems built into the educational framework designed to help kids develop their spatial skills (though of course, the efficacy of the systems designed to identify and help struggling kids with math and reading is debatable/sometimes ineffective/socioeconomically divided, etc).

I was always good at reading maps, but I find myself struggling to do more complex mental gymnastics now, as I try to layer information on top of information in my mental maps. If the atmospheric circulation system over Antarctica is doing (fill in the blank) now, and we change (x factor, way the hell far away), then...thinking in four dimensions is hard.

Instead, let's just look at these pretty things. An amazing topo necklace. This, from the PS1 show.