Geography 280: Course challenges students to rethink what a map is

A University of Calgary geography class is teaching students all about the rules of mapping and digital spatial data and then getting them to creatively break them.

Geography 280, Thinking Spatially in a Digital World, is an open-enrolment course that introduces students to spatial data, mapping technologies and geographic problems. Their work in the course throughout the term builds towards an analysis project of their own design using real data.

“It uses a lot of digital science,” says Tanya Yeomans, a sessional instructor in the Department of Geography in the Faculty of Arts. “However, the course is not just about the technical aspect of data, but the social aspect, as well.”

To teach the social aspect, Yeomans, BSc'04, BA'20, MSc'25, gives students a creative assignment that marks a turning point for the course. Students switch from thinking about how to use spatial data and software to the limitations, assumptions and implications involved in working with this data.

“We were given the chance to use our creative freedom to create a map about a place that is special to us,” says Maren Vincett, a third-year kinesiology student in the class.

Finding a personal approach to geographic data

Yeomans says the students are challenged to rethink geographic data from a different, more-personal perspective and to question what counts as valid spatial data and the different ways it can be shared.

Vincett’s assignment features her family’s generational farm, and aerial photographs from 1954, 1995 and 2017.

“It took me a second to get in the headspace of switching gears to the creative side of geography and figure out how I wanted to show my experience,” she says. “A lot of people don’t get to experience what I have as a rural student who has a 100-year-old farm that has been documented in their family history.”

Tamyra Peart, a second-year communications studies student, built a time map of her room.

“It was from 2020 to 2025, and I mapped out different emotional spaces I have and how they changed over time,” explains Peart.

Thinking outside the box

The assignment has seen an array of outside-the-box submissions. For example, last year, a student built a digital Minecraft tour of their personal home based on memories and recollections, while another made a to-scale crocheted data physicalization of their room.

Anna Fielding, a first-year history student, sewed different pieces of fabric together to create a representation of an area of the west coast of Vancouver Island she had spent a lot of time in.

“I’ve always enjoyed looking at contour maps and, in my head, I was visualizing how you could do different layers and patterns of fabric for different elevation lines,” she says.

Some students from this year’s class displayed their projects at the Little Gallery in the Art Building from Nov. 25 to 27, including Vincett and Fielding.

The class continues a research interest for Yeomans, who investigates ways to understand and represent data that aren’t conventional.

“From my perspective, using creative methods is not only a way to share information in a novel format, but it’s also a way of thinking through our relationships to data and space,” says Yeomans.

Peart found the approach to be refreshing.

Expanding what geography means for students

“Typically, I think of geography as a strict map,” she says. “Seeing that maps can have a personal meaning opened my eyes to what geography can be.”

Fielding found the project a bit overwhelming at first, saying her map could have been a mind map of all her ideas.

“It’s difficult to just be given no guardrails,” says Fielding. “But I think it’s good to be let outside the box sometimes and go wherever your brain takes you.”

Yeomans says the students worked very hard and they should be proud of themselves, while also hoping she conveyed the versatility of geography to them.

“Geography as a discipline has a lot to offer students,” she says. “Many disciplines have a spatial component, and geography bridges the arts, sciences and technology, encouraging us to see the world from multiple perspectives.”