Overall, this lab exercise was interesting and informing. Looking at how different projections can alter your data. For me, five out the six maps had all of the same measurements even though they were using different projections, so I'm not sure if that is correct or not but it's what I was getting for my projections. The last projection I used was sphere based instead of world based which caused mass distortion near the poles, especially in the north which caused my measurements for that particular projection to be off.

I think projections can be very useful and they have been proven to be, you just have to pay attention to which one you're using and with what data. Of course, when transferring a 3-dimensional object to a two-dimensional surface you will have distortion depending on what projection you are using as you can see in some of the maps I have uploaded.

When it came to the equal area projection I was a little confused because there was only one equal area projection to choose from that incorporated the entire world. The other projection to choose from was a sphere based projection and they both are the exact same image with different measurements.

On every map in my blog, you can see that they all have distortion but it is focused away from the target area I am using, which is measuring the distance across the Atlantic from Washington D.C. to Kabul, Afghanistan. The image is clear on these two continents but you will see amongst the projections the distortion occurs either in the poles or along the sides of the map. A good exercise to get some practice on.