Final Project Proposal

For my final project, I would like to map the Emperor Penguin colonies in Antarctica.  a National Geographic Expedition to Antarctica is at the top of my "bucket list" of places to visit in my lifetime, and thought it might be fun to map the area.  I chose penguins because they are the most iconic image of the South Pole.  I narrowed my topic down to Emperor Penguins because despite there only being five main species of penguins on the actual continent, there are A LOT of penguins within each species.  I'm talking millions of breeding pairs in the Adelie Penguin species alone.  Emperor Penguins are smaller in number, and much more manageable for an amateur map maker.

I have gone back and forth on the type of map I am envisioning.  I originally wanted to create a dot density map, but I cannot find supporting material for dot placement.  Since penguins mostly live on the coast, it wouldn't make much sense to have a bunch of little dots along the coast only (they have nesting grounds further inland, but I cannot find data on their locations).  So, I am making a proportional symbol map instead.  I have found data from peer-reviewed research published in 2012 by a group of experts from the British Antarctic Survey, the Polar Geospatial Center in Minnesota, Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, and the Australian Antarctic Division.  They used satellite imagery to determine colony size and location for 46 different Emperor Penguin colonies, some of which were undiscovered before.  The data lists the number of penguins counted in the imagery at each colony, and provides total count numbers.  A link to the research journal entry can be found at this link:  http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0033751

This map will be of Antarctica in it's true form, so I will need a base map in a polar stereographic projection.  I am having trouble finding such a base map, as most that I have found are already shaded and colored.  That will be my main challenge, I believe.  My other challenge will be symbol placement, as proportional symbols may overlap as colonies are close together in some areas.  I am hoping a transparent symbol, or an outlined circle will help that.

I am hoping that within the next week to have the base map so I can begin attempting to shade and make it look nice before adding the data to it.  After that, I do not imagine it will take long to add the data in their correct placements, as long as I give myself the proper time.

Below is a map from the research that I am using data from.  It shows the different colonies and where they are located around the continent.  

This is a proportional symbol map based on data that I can't find, but it's similar to what I had imagined.  I do not like the different colors, as I do not know what they are trying to tell us, but the idea is generally the same: