Google Earth

Google Earth is a program which lets you see anywhere in the world, quite clearly. I played around with it tonight and literally saw my country, state, town, street and house. Very impressive.
Using Google Earth is something I have never really considered, as I hadn't used it before now. I can see many different uses for this program in classes.

• Confirming geographical ideas and seeing where countries are in relation to Australia.
• Allowing students to display where they have travelled, and where they would like to travel.
• Tracking places in stories where characters have been, or creating a scenario or story together with pictures or a tour to support it.
• Studying history and typical features about countries.
• Measuring the distance between places or objects.
• Finding new areas and land to build cities.
• Conducting research about a particular place, or places by adding layers.
• Look up places mentioned in movies, news or video clips.
• Learn map reading and navigation.

This is a list from Google of how to use Google Earth in the classroom:

• Biology: Track routes of chimpanzees in Tanzania's Gombe Forest. See the Jane Goodall Institute Chimpanzee blog here.
• Ecology: Create a short quiz like this one.
• Environmental Science: Have students check Alaska's global warming problems. See how the Sierra Club used Google Earth to depict this problem here.
• Geology: Find images, links, and descriptions, with information about thousands of volcanoes around the globe, thanks to organizations like the Smithsonian Institution's Global Volcanism Program.
• Global Awareness: Study the Crisis in Darfur with the US Holocaust Memorial Museum's unprecedented project.
• History: Explore Tutankhamun's Tomb.
• Humanities: Have your students scout film shoot locations like this teacher did with The Golden Compass.
• Literature: Bring class or contemporary tales to life with Google LitTrips.
• Math: Explore distance, velocity, and wave properties of tsunamis. 

Google Earth could be used in many different ways to engage classes.

Regards,
Toni