Using Google Earth For Distance Learning
Utah from above.
With all of us practicing social distancing, the possibility of traveling and seeing the world is a slim possibility for most students and teachers. However, with updates to Google Earth, everyone is able to see the world, create content to share with the world, and explore places from books, movies, and historical events. Even though it is ostensibly a geography tool, Google Earth can be used in many disciplines with a little adaptation. So at this point head out and load up Google Earth.
Navigating Around The Globe
From outer space to the greatest city on Earth.
On the left hand side of the screen you will seethe magnifier glass. This allows users to search for anywhere on Earth: the Pyramids, active volcanos, Lake Baikal, and my personal favorite, London. Very cool, but easy to navigate. Where it gets interesting is once you search for a location, users get a pop up on the left hand side that allows users to read the Wikipedia entry for the location and a button for to add the location to a project. This gives teachers and students a way to quickly search and build tours for specific classroom purposes. More on making tours in a bit. Finally, there is a send button (the little paper airplane on a blue field) so that when you find something great around the globe, you can send it to your students or another teacher.
Big Ben is being renovated.
Once you find your location, you can zoom in and out to find specific streets or landmarks. Now in Google Maps, users work with a 2D maps with some 3D elements, but in Google Earth using the ‘2D’ or ‘3D’ button in the bottom right corner allows users to see a 3D rendering of locations around the world. In the gif above you can see the famous landmark Big Ben and Parliament, but currently under restoration. It gives users a new viewpoint on world locations that can add context to both landmarks, but also landforms like the Grand Canyon, Lake Baikal, or the Wasatch Mountains. Giving students a list of locations and asking them to explore them in 3D can add a lot of understanding within students about our planet.
Preplanned Voyages
Show students the world.
One of the best features of Google Earth is using Voyager, Google Earth’s preplanned tours to share different facets of our planet with students. On the left hand side of the page, users can click the ship’s wheel and they will be greeted with dozens of Google created tours for a variety of subjects. Here are a few of my favorites:
Fairy Tales From Around The World: Over the course of eleven sites, this tour teaches students about different fairy tales and where they came from. It is a quick tour, but it gives users some great ideas about how fairy tales came to be and why they are important to the geographic area.
Iconic Women of Science: This tour explores the lives of nine famous women scientists, where their labs were, and the effects that their work continues to have our society.
Literary Locations In Real Life: Writers often use real world locations to influence their works. This tour shows users the real locations from Harry Potter to Lord of The Rings.
Quiz: Ancient Civilizations: This quiz takes students through ancient sites around the world and get them all set to understand the basics of world civilization.
Visualizing Snow Cover In Google Earth: Snow pack levels have significant impact on all aspects of water use around the globe and this tour gives users a clear visualization of how snow levels change over time.
Discover Ireland: As part of their Discover series, users can visit culturally and historically significant locations in a variety of countries around the world.
Visit Arches National Park: Part of a larger series on American National Parks, this particular tour hits close to home and is very recommended.
Where on Google Earth is Carmen Sandiego?: Its Carmen Sandiego. Go play it.
Roll The Dice
I went to Japan on a whim.
If you click the dice on the left hand side of the page, users will be take to a random location around the globe. I have used this for Creative Writing before; I ask students to click on the dice and whatever location they get is the starting point for your story. This encourages students to explore new locations and further their knowledge of Earth. However, there are applications for geography and science as well for location reports, ecosystem examinations, etc.
To Boldly Go (Tour Creating)…
Using Google Earth you can create your own tour.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of Google Earth’s update is the addition of tour building. This used to be done through Google Tour Builder as a beta, but now it has been integrated and users can create a tour without a secondary login. To start your fifth icon on the left (it looks like a map pin) and you can create a tour from scratch. First make sure that you label your tour to differentiate it from other tours. From there you can search and add locations from any where. You can also lock the view to a specific orientation for your students, add information from a variety of sources or write your own, and move to street view. It is a powerful tool that can give teachers a new way to explore topics with your students or to assess if students have learned about certain locations in your classroom.
One of my favorite uses with students is to make an episodic short story and have students write the different chapters within their tour. Students are able to explore new locations to challenge their knowledge of Earth, but also it pushes them as writers to write about real world places and to have to research for their own writing.
Area and Perimeter
Around the M25 in 30 seconds.
One of my favorite applications within Google Earth is to use the ruler tool (the last tool on the left) to create both length and area measurements of real locations. Above I went around London and I was able to quickly measure the area and distance, roughly. This gives math teachers a great tool for helping students see how measurements and distances work in real life. Also you can add these areas and lines to a tour to point out specific locations and ideas. I made one two years back on Google My Maps, another powerful tool, to show my learning of the Viet Nam War during a seminar. I was able to add battles, zones, major battles, and a dataset from the University of Chicago of villages that Marines visited during the war.
As you can see there are many uses for Google Earth and My Maps for building interesting and engaging learning opportunities for our students during distance learning. If you have any other ideas, please email me at matt@teacherwinters.net or on Twitter at @teacherwinters.
