Social Studies

During the second round of preparation, I made my ideas clearer and stronger by improving my “So What?” explanation and using specific examples like Lukang and Daxi to clearly show how access to water helps with survival and trade. I also created a more effective trap question that focused on other settlement types’ weaknesses, such as overcrowding in nucleated settlements. In addition, I improved my defense by explaining simple solutions to problems like flooding, such as better planning and design. 

This made our argument more complete, logical, and convincing.

Renee: advantages: clear demonstation on things you did

Something can be improved: The counterclaims from the other teams could be included

In this project, it was quite hard and a little bit confusing, especially during the calculation steps. One little mistake happened in Step 4, where the largest population was written as New Taipei only (3,897,367), but actually it should have combined Taipei City and New Taipei=. Because of this, the range was calculated incorrectly, and it affected a lot of the next steps. The correct way is to carefully read the data and include combined populations when needed.

Another mistake was in Step 6. Instead of writing a clear answer, the work showed “+1,” which is not correct. The correct method is to divide the rounded range evenly by the number of color groups and write a clean number. This caused the value ranges to be slightly off.

Looking at the map, one region that might be incorrect is Taichung City. Its population is over 1,000,000, so it should be in a higher range, but the color used looks closer to a middle range. It should be a darker or higher-level color to match the data.

One visual issue is uneven shading. Some areas are darker and some are lighter even though they are the same color group, which makes the map harder to read. Also, some labels are small and messy, making them difficult to understand. Next time, I will use the same color so when others are l

The most difficult part was creating the value scale (Steps 6–9). When stuck, the work continued instead of stopping to check, which led to more mistakes. Next time, checking each step carefully before moving on will help avoid errors.

One habit to improve is double-checking calculations right after finishing them. Before coloring the map, making sure the numbers are correct will make everything easier.

From feedback, a classmate showed a map with smoother shading and clearer colors. Seeing that made it clear that presentation is very important. Next time, more effort will be put into making the map neat and easy to read.

The Thing That Didn't Improve:

One thing that still did not improve much was making the shading more clear because the colors kind of look the same, and some people might think there is no big difference between the regions. I think this happened because I chose colors that were too similar and did not shade evenly enough. For a third map, I would use more contrasting colors and make the shading smoother so the differences are easier to see.

 The Method:

For the France map, I had to apply the value scale method mostly by myself instead of following step-by-step instructions. The hardest part was creating the ranges and making sure the numbers were divided correctly. I had to slow down during the calculations because one mistake could affect the whole map. However, I felt more confident matching the regions to the legend and understanding how choropleth maps show data visually. This showed that I learned how the value scale works instead of only copying the worksheet steps from the Taiwan map.

The Map as Communication:

When I showed my France choropleth map to my family , they said they could tell that the darker blue regions had larger populations and the lighter regions had smaller populations. They also understood that the map was comparing population distribution across France. This means the map mostly communicated what I intended. However, they also said some labels were difficult to read and the shading looked uneven in certain places. If I changed the map, I would make the labels clearer and improve the coloring to make the information easier to understand.

The highest population region in France is Île-de-France because it includes Paris, the capital city and economic center of the country. The lowest population region is Corsica because it is a smaller island with fewer cities and people. Most highly populated regions are near major cities and transportation areas. The choropleth map communicates this effectively by using darker colors to show regions with larger populations and lighter colors for regions with fewer people.