Tourism, Entertainment & Recreation

Keynote
Happy maps, Daniele Quercia
B1–C2
Discussion
1 Work in groups. Discuss the questions.
1 How do you get to work or classes? Do you always take the same route and the same form of
transport?
2 What might make you decide to take a different route, or use an alternative form of transport?
3 Do you ever use a mapping app for finding directions? When do you normally use it? Why?

Key words
2 Read this summary of Daniele Quercia’s TED Talk, Happy maps. Match the words and phrases
in bold with their definitions (1–10).
Daniele Quercia works in the field of computational social science. One day, after a month of
cycling the same route to work at the University of Cambridge in Boston, he took a detour and
was surprised to find himself in a tree-lined road with no cars. He was ashamed that up to that
day, in order to save a minute on his daily commute, and by following the definitive route
suggested by his mapping app, he had been missing the chance to connect with people and
nature.
This experience led him to change his research. He began conducting social science experiments
at scale using a web game to crowdsource the data. He asked players which urban scenes people
found more attractive. Based on thousands of votes, he was able to find out where consensus
emerged. He aggregated the results and came up with a whole new field of cartography that
could be weighted for human emotions rather than efficiency.

1 the business of making maps ____________________

2 connected with cities and towns and not the countryside ____________________
3 a different and possibly longer route to the one you usually take ____________________
4 giving more importance to one thing than others ____________________
5 agreement between many people ____________________
6 a person’s regular journey to and from work ____________________
7 get information or help from many people to develop something, usually using the Internet
____________________
8 the best version of something ____________________
9 at a particular size – larger or smaller – than the original ____________________
10 calculated the total ____________________

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Happy maps
Comprehension
3 Watch Daniele Quercia’s talk on TED.com. Choose the correct option (a, b or c) to complete
these sentences.

1 After Daniele Quercia took a detour to work he felt _____ .

a surprised and emotional
b emotional and ashamed
c surprised and ashamed

2 Daniele Quercia says that normal mapping apps _____ .

a discourage people from exploring the city
b are often incorrect and need further development
c are great at encouraging people to explore the city

3 In the game, players compare photos of _____ .

a two scenes of the city
b two scenes of the countryside
c two photos of the same buildings

4 The results of his research _____ .

a showed why people are happiest in the countryside
b showed which city scenes people liked the best
c helped him create a new mapping app for Boston

5 At the time of his TED Talk, Daniele Quercia was _____ .

a doing a PhD in cartography
b a researcher and developer for Yahoo
c a small business entrepreneur

6 He wanted to make mapping apps based on _____ .

a nature, sound, smells and memories
b speed, efficiency, nature and music
c going through parks and meeting people

The big idea

4 Work in groups. Discuss the questions.
1 In which ways does Daniele Quercia believe that his mapping app will enrich people’s everyday
journeys? How many of these are important to you personally?
2 Which four kinds of routes does his new London city map show? Which type would you prefer to
use to get to work?
3 Do you agree that taking the same route every day stops people fully experiencing a city? Why?
4 Who do you think might be interested in buying and using this kind of app?
5 Did his talk make you want to buy one of his apps? Why? / Why not?

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Happy maps
Language focus – travel and recreation
5 Choose the correct option to make collocations from the TED Talk. Then check your answers in
the transcript.
1 connect your way / with nature
2 explore the city / where to go
3 find with nature / directions
4 know the path / where to go
5 take where to go / a different route
6 find from A to B / your way

6 Complete these sentences with the collocations from Exercise 5.

1 The road was blocked so we had to __________________________ .
2 It’s not always easy to __________________________ in a new city.
3 Walking through parks and woods allows us to __________________________ .
4 Do you __________________________? Or shall we ask for directions?
5 There are so many places we haven’t been to in Madrid. We should really try to
__________________________ more this summer.
6 We need to use the app to __________________________ from the campsite to the festival.

7 Can you remember which adjective and noun pairs are needed to complete this extract from
the TED Talk? The first letters are given to help you. Watch the talk again from 4.50–5.50 and
check your answers.
‘I teamed up with Luca and Rossano … to build a new map of the city, a cartography weighted for
1
h__________ e__________ . On this cartography, … you’re also able to see the happy segment,
the 2b__________ p__________ , the quiet path. In tests, participants found the happy, the
beautiful, the quiet path far more enjoyable than the shortest one, and that just by adding a few
minutes to 3t__________ t__________ . Participants also love to attach memories to places.
Shared memories – that’s where the old BBC building was; and 4p__________ m__________ –
that’s where I gave my first kiss.’

8 Work in pairs. Complete the quotations from the TED Talk. Check with the transcript if
necessary.
1 ‘__________ will get you from A to B. __________ will take you __________.’ (3.44)
2 ‘If you think that __________ is dangerous, try __________. It’s __________.’ (7.06)

9 Adapt the two quotations from Exercise 7 by writing other words in the gaps to turn them into
marketing slogans for a travel company. Compare your slogans.
1 _______________ will get you from A to B. _______________ will take you _______________ .
2 If you think that _______________ is dangerous, try _______________ . It’s _______________ .

Speaking
10 Work in pairs. Look at a map of your town or a city that you know well. Decide on two routes
for a one-hour guided walking tour of the city. The first path or route should take in as many
sights and interesting places as possible in the time available; the second should show the most
beautiful or quiet walk.

11 Compare and discuss your routes and paths with other students. Which of the walking tours
would you offer? Who are they most likely to appeal to? What other types of (guided) walks
could you offer in the town or city?

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