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 110

cast long shadows, emphasizing local topography). The lack of visible topographic
features were a result of distortion of the observational data set (and partly due to
the atmosphere), but were interpreted as a lack of real topographic features. This
could have led to the common misconception of canals, which, according to the
theory, are used for irrigating the dry but otherwise fertile plains (Lowell 1908 ).
This way the theory of a flat Mars helped paving the way for the theory of the canal
system of Mars. It is also easiest to imagine a global plain, since it requires no
imagination of more complicated geographic features.
Between the age of 12 and 18 the color red was often mentioned, but this
observational fact, known by anyone who have ever seen Mars in the night sky,
was interpreted differently: a 12-year-old explained the reddish color as “lava”,
some 15-22-year-old physical science students said that it is because of its iron
content, while one student of humanities attributed the color to the atmosphere of
Mars. This latter explanation coincides with the history of discovery of Titan, which
orange color was first interpreted incorrectly as the color of its surface by G. Kuiper
( 1944 ).
A 15-year-old “terraformed” Mars: he placed “mountain chains, valleys and
volcanic mountains” onto Mars. Apart from university students in Earth Sciences,
only one respondent mentioned craters and the polar caps. The other answers
mentioned volcanoes, river valleys, dust and sand.
This survey showed that several different views exits about Mars, and these
images are dependent on the age of the respondents.
9.4.2 Concepts of Mars Before and After Viewing the Maps
The next survey was made in 2011 in four middle school classes where students
could also study the maps. Although the students got the same maps, their responses
were not at all uniform in any of the groups (Fig. 9.3 ).Most students in this survey
mentioned mountains, craters and hills the most, plains only ranked fourth place.
This is in contrast with a previous study in which plains was the most common
answer. Many students gave more details: rocky surface, res soil, dust, buttes, snow
caps, or mentioned other aspects of its surface: dry and past water (Fig. 9.3 ).
9.4.3 Latin Names
Students reading the map in Latin , used the Latin names for surface description,
often without any comment. Names with Rupes, Sulci, Planitia could not be
interpreted by any of the respondents, they only “copied” the names. Valles
Marineris was interpreted as ravine or long valley.