The View from Even Higher
It looks like a map!

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The balloon continued to rise. Nikki was now directly over the park. She could no longer see the sides of the buildings. Instead, she saw the tops of the buildings. The red and white top of the carousel now looked like a fancy pie. She was seeing the ground the way the birds see it.

Nikki noticed a rope which was dangling by itself from the balloon into the basket. She grabbed the rope to steady herself. This let the air out of the balloon and the balloon started to slowly descend toward the ground. She saw that the balloon was drifting toward a large fenced pasture, located within the park, where she finally landed. Nikki had a wonderful adventure but she was glad to be on the ground and see her mother again.

Here is another overhead view of the park. If Nikki had gone high enough, she would have had been able to see or view the park like this.
Now look for these parts of the park one more time.

- the gates
- the oak trees
- the lake

 

- bridge
- boat rides
- the merry-go-round

 Don’t they look different? Now you just see the tops of things. Trees look like circles and some of the buildings look like squares.

This might not be a view you see very much, but it is the view used for most maps.

Maps are used by people to locate places on the Earth's surface. So a map is usually an overhead view drawing of a part of the Earth, just like this picture of the park.

Thanks to the United States Geological Survey for the information and materials found on this site.