How to Use the Strand Maps

How do I navigate around the Strand Maps UI?

For more information on how to use the navigation widgets and features of the Strand Maps UI, please view the following wiki page: How to Use Science Literacy Maps

Printing the Maps

In what formats are the Strand Maps available for printing?

The Strand Maps are available in PDF format. To get a PDF, first open the interactive map you are interested in. Click the link 'Print view' near the upper right corner of the screen. From the following page, click 'PDF of Map' to open a PDF for printing.

How can I print the maps across multiple pages?

The best way is to use an application that can print a PDF across multiple pages, but you will need to have the right application installed on your computer in order to do this.

Some versions of Acrobat (not Acrobat Reader) have an option to 'tile' the print output across multiple pages. To to this, be sure to open the file using Acrobat and then select print. From the print dialog box, look for the 'Page Scaling' or output options and see if the 'Tile large pages' option is available on your version of Acrobat.

Another option that is much more labor intensive is to use Microsoft Word or PowerPoint (or similar application) to manually crop the map image across multiple pages for printing.

The basic steps to do this are:

  1. Save the map image to your computer (right click on the image from the print view page and choose "save picture as...")
  2. Insert the image into Word or PowerPoint
  3. Repeat #2 across four pages;
  4. Crop each page, one for each of the four corners of the map;
  5. Print...

Technical

How can I align resources to the NSDL Science Literacy Maps?

For more information on how to align resources to the AAAS Benchmark, please view the following wiki page: Resource Alignment

What software is used to power the web interface for the Strand Maps?

The Strand Maps web interface uses Javascript and the Strand Maps API can be found at http://strandmaps.nsdl.org/cms1-2/docs/index.jsp.

If you are interested in looking at some example code or additional information about the Strand Maps, please check out the project documentation and the available training.

What are the Technical Requirements to use the Strand Maps? End-user

  • Javascript enabled browser Developer
  • Requirements are dependent on intent. Since the API is called from a central location on NSDL servers, it is possible to make a functional interface with a server to host the webpage, HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. More complex functionality may require a server-side web technologies and/or a database. For more information see the SMS JavaScript API implementation instructions and the example code.

Can I insert my own maps into the Strand Maps UI?

The Strand Map Service provides access only to the maps available in the AAAS Atlas of Science Literacy Vol 1 & 2. At present it is not possible to insert other maps into the UI, however this functionality may become available in the future.

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