Google Earth

Google Earth animation, source: Climate History; accessed on 10 April 2013

There are many ways to enhance student learning with the use of new technologies. This course gave me an opportunity to explore several interactive tools to support educational experience. The Google Earth program goes a step further in aiding teachers to deliver engaging material to a diverse range of students in classrooms.

10 Strange discoveries on Google Earth, source: Youtube; accessed on 9 April 2013

Google Earth can be used:

• "to support hands-on inquiry by students in computer classrooms
• as a basis for homework assignments
• for dynamic presentations during class lectures
• for inquiry during class presentations
• to create imagery and maps for PowerPoint, Word, and other presentation tools
• as a data discovery, organization, and distribution tool for research projects
• to enrich discussion of an issue that arises spontaneously during an informal classroom discussion" (Carleton, 2012)

Google Earth can be applied in a wide range of subjects:

"Biology and Ecology:

• Track routes of chimpanzees with the Jane Godall Institute by exploring the KML from the Gombe Chimpanzee blog. 
• Replace a standard lesson with a short quiz like this one that uses Google Earth to take students on a an ecology search mission.

Environmental and Earth Sciences:

•  Explore the impact of climate change with Kofi Annan. 
• Have students check Alaska's global warming problems. See how the Sierra Club used Google Earth to depict this problem here. 
• View Google Earth layers containing images, links, and descriptions, with information about thousands of volcanoes around the globe, thanks to organizations like the Smithsonian Institution's Global Volcanism Program. 
• Lesson: “From Here to There” uses Google Earth to create placemarks detailing an earth science project. 
• Lesson: Earthquake! USGS & Google Earth uses Google Earth layers to study tectonics and earth movement. 

Global Awareness:

• Study the Crisis in Darfur with the US Holocaust Memorial Museum's unprecedented project.

History, Social Studies and Humanities:

• Have students explore the dining customs of a variety of countries by building an International Cookbook where users virtually visit the various countries. While they’re ‘in-country” why not stop by and visit a few points of cultural interest?
• Lesson: Spring Sojourn: A lesson in Civil Rights History and Geography.
• Lesson: A Place in Time with Google Tools. Explore with your students the power of images and their impact on history as they research, select and evaluate photographs in an interactive and collaborative lesson.
• Lesson: A Candidate Watch with Google Tools. Lesson ideas for tracking the 2008 US Presidential campaign using Google Earth, Docs & Spreadsheets, News Archives search, and Blogger. 

Art, History and Architecture:

• Search famous museums like the Louvre in Paris. 
• Use Google Earth’s 3D building layer to discover key historical and modern architectural works such as the Duomo in Florence, Italy or the Washington Monument, in Washington DC

English and Literature:

• Lesson: "Postcards from the Past using Google Earth Tools" by Cheryl Davis, Teacher. 
• Have your students discover locations from within films, like this teacher did with The Golden Compass. 
• Lesson:Google Lit Trips: Explore literature through Google Earth, flying between places mentioned in the books. 

Maths:

• Use real-time coordinates to demonstrate distance calculations and verify the results using our measurement tools.
• Calculate the volume of the Great Pyramids and estimate the land area lost to Amazon deforestation. 
• Explore distance, velocity, and wave properties of tsunamis by looking at the Figi Island Tsunami within Google Earth." (Google, 2013)