Interpretation of Surface Features of Mars as a Function of Its Verbal—Toponymic—and Visual Representation - Maps for the Future Children Education and Internet - page 108

In 2007, a questionnaire was distributed to various age groups, asking them to
characterize Mars. In 2011, a more focused survey was made in four middle school
classes in Hungary(K urt Alap ´ tv ´ nyi Gimn ´ zium, Budapest, 10a, 10b, 11a, 11b

classes) (two classes studying geography in English, two in Hungarian, 16-17 year
old pupils). They were given a questionnaire and maps. They first had to give a
short description of Mars without a map—this task was similar to the 2007 survey.
Then the students got one map-specific task. They got two sets of maps of Mars.
Half of them got a map showing a nomenclature in the official form (in Latin), the
others got the standardized Hungarian language variant (Hargitai et al. 2010 ;
Hargitai and Kereszturi 2002 ). The base map and layout of these variants were
similar. After receiving the maps, they again had to describe Mars, but now using
these medium and small scale maps (Figs. 9.1 , 9.2 ). The medium scale maps were
cutouts from the global topographic map of Mars (Hargitai 2008q).
It would have been interesting to include P. Lowell's so-called Lowellian canal
network nomenclature which probably would result in a completely different

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Fig. 9.1 Detail of the map of Mars, with official IAU (Latin) nomenclature (all maps by author)