This high school geography resource examines how cylindrical map projections represent Earth’s curved surface and why distortion increases with latitude. Students analyze trade-offs among area, shape, distance, and direction to evaluate map purpose, bias, and real-world use. IncludesOrange peel analogy and fundamentals of cylindrical projectionsMercator projection history and navigation purposeComparison of Mercator, Gall-Peters, Robinson, and MollweideDistortion analysis using area, shape, dist