Google Earth in Education

If you haven’t seen Google Earth yet, try it now; you are missing out on one of the greatest pieces of educational software ever released. The free (yes, free) Earth simulation goes from strength to strength. The latest imagery for Wolverhampton is truly stunning:

The City Learning Centre

The Molineux stadium and surrounding area

What does the software do? With Google Earth you can:

• Fly from and to any location on Earth. The sensation of skimming over the surface is quite extraordinary. Favourite locations can be stored as placemarks for rapid retrieval.
• Zoom in and out of locations and alter the pitch of view (so you can fly between mountains, for example)
• Measure the distance between locations
• See placenames, street names, schools, hospitals etc. etc.

Google Earth has the potential to enrich lessons in almost any subject. Here are a few ideas for using it:

History

• Visit the scenes of key historical events; maybe a battlefield, Pudding Lane, or the Tower of London. How have the sites changed?
• Use the inbuilt measuring tools to calculate how far and fast armies moved and to assess the terrain over which movements occurred.
• Annotate over Google Earth on an Interactive Whiteboard to illustrate the key events of World War I/II

Geography

• Study physical geography - fly through the Grand Canyon, between the skyscrapers of Manhattan, over the Himalayas or across the Sahara. Look at deforestation in South America.
• Analyze land usage in a city. How does housing change as you move between different areas of Wolverhampton? What sorts of businesses are found as you move out from the City Centre? How much of the land is green?

(added 06/02/06) Visit http://www.digitalgeography.co.uk/ for more Google Earth Geography ideas and ICT in Geography advice generally.

Languages

• Visit foreign capitals; fly over the Eiffel Tower or the Colosseum. 

PSHE / Citizenship

• Visit the sites of current world events.
• Visit the ancestral homelands of students from diverse ethnic backgrounds and discuss differences / similarities with the UK.

English

• See the location of a Shakespeare play.
• Pick two nearby locations and imagine a journey between them. What terrain would you need to cover? Write a story or poem about the journey.

Science / Maths

• The Earth from space. How big is the Earth? How thick is the atmosphere?
• Distance / Speed / Time calculations
• Scale and estimating distances

For a brief tutorial on Google Earth, and other links to educational Google Earth sites visit this site.

One fantastic feature of the software is that people can create "layers" for Google Earth to add sets of locations and information on a particular topic. The Google Earth community site at http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/ubbthreads.php/Cat/0/C/20 includes hundreds of such layers - a quick look round unearthed one with the complete set of locations from Shakespeare’s plays and even a layer of all major football stadiums in the world!

Another site worth keeping an eye on is the Google Earth Blog at http://www.gearthblog.com.

Google Earth is free and can be downloaded at http://earth.google.com.  Be sure to check that your PC meets the system requirements; in particular, it is essential to have a broadband internet connection. Remember to consult with your network administrator before installing any software onto a networked school PC.

Bookmark on: