Google Earth in the Homeschool – Part II

Last month I introduced Google Earth – a truly fascinating tool for exploring the planet. This month we go deeper to learn all kinds of fascinating new uses for this incredible free tool. If you need a refresher, look into last month's article. Fire up your own copy of Google Earth – you'll want to play along!

The Layered Look

One of the most powerful features of Google Earth is the Layers feature. Layers allow you to display various other features on top of the existing map data. There are a number of fascinating possibilities. Here's a few of my favorites:

Borders and Labels – Select this layer to see state and national boundaries and city names. This can really help you figure out exactly where you are.
Roads – prominent roads are featured on the map along with labels. This really helps you get a feel for where you are.
3D Buildings – This is one of the coolest features in Google Earth, but it does require a higher-powered computer to appreciate. Turn on this option and when you get close to the ground, you'll be able to see three-dimensional buildings. Thousands of famous (and not-so-famous) buildings are already included, and you can even add your own house! (See the section below on Google Sketchup for details.) You can turn on full textures for the maximum realism, or go for a flat single color for better performance.
Ocean – Traditional atlases treat oceans as empty space, but Google Earth gives you many options for exploring the oceans. Turn on the shipwrecks button to see the locations and stories behind many shipwrecks. Ocean expeditions takes you on a tour of several interesting expeditions. For example, one expedition that starts in Guam takes you on a tour of undersea volcanoes, some with videos! Animal tracking lets you select an animal like a shark or a whale, and see in first-person view where that animal has been swimming!
Weather – The weather tab is equally fascinating. Turn on “Clouds” to see major cloud formations in close to real time. You can also view radar data and view current temperature and conditions anywhere in the world.
Gallery – This menu features some exceptional content provided by outside providers. Especially noteworthy is the Ancient Rome 3D Gallery, which allows you to see what Rome looked like. National Geographic has several interesting options, but our favorite is the live WildCams. This feature allows you to view live webcams of animal habitats all over the world. We watched elephants come to a watering hole in Botswana while we ate our breakfast once. NASA has some very nice imagery, and Wikiloc shows interesting trails. Note that some content comes from the outside Internet, so as always, you should monitor your kids as they use this content.
More – If you're not overwhelmed yet, there are even more layers available in the (cleverly-named) More section. Among the most interesting options here are Places/categories, which allows you to place a marker on coffee shops and ATMs, and the Transportation section, which allows you to mark airports and rail lines.

Changing Space and Time

A program as comprehensive as Google Earth isn't limited by silly things like space and time. There are many ways to modify when and where you're looking. For example, you can choose “Historical Imagery” from the “View” menu to get a slider to pick a time span. For some parts of the earth, you'll see aerial photos for the last 15 years or so. In a few places (like Rome) you can go back thousands of years.

You can also use the “View Sun” menu command to see the current day/night boundaries. This also pops up a slider so you can change the time.

Space is a big part of Google Earth, too. If you zoom way out, you can see the stars. You can also turn off atmosphere from the view menu to see the stars from any particular part of the globe. (Note that star positions change constantly, so they may not be exactly accurate.) For more celestial adventures, go to the “Explore” menu under the “View” menu. You can explore the sky, the moon, and Mars! Sky view gives you a view of the constellations. You can zoom in on a particular area of space for much more detail. The images are absolutely astounding. Sky has its own set of layers, which allows you to turn on constellations, the solar system. The “Welcome to Sky” tour is worth doing if you have any interest in astronomy.

You can also visit Mars. As you'd expect, there's quite a bit of detail in the layers menu. You can see place names, satellite images, and paths of the rovers and satellites that are currently exploring Mars. The moon is just as interesting, as it features photos, images, and models of the various explorations. You can zoom into the Apollo 11 landing site and see a model of the lunar lander.

I Believe I can Fly

One of my favorite features of Google Earth is a built-in flight simulator! Navigate to anywhere on the planet and choose “Enter Flight Simulator” from the “Tools” menu. You'll be given a choice between two aircraft: a jet fighter and a more manageable prop plane. If you're a beginner, you'll have better luck with the slower plane. Before you get started, click on the help button that comes with the flight simulator pop-up window. This describes the keyboard commands you'll use to control the plane. When the flight simulator begins, you'll see a heads-up display that indicates the aircraft's speed and direction. You can use a joystick or keyboard to fly the plane, but I think the mouse control is probably the easiest. Click the mouse button while the flight simulator is running and the the mouse cursor will change to a cross and your mouse will act like a flight yoke. Push forward to push the aircraft's nose down, pull back to raise the nose, and use side-to-side motion to roll the plane and control its direction. The aircraft is easiest to manage when you've turned on roads (especially if you're flying in a place you know) and airports (from the Layers – More – Transportation) layer. It can be challenging to land the aircraft, but it is possible. You can even fly on Mars and the moon. (I know, there's no atmosphere on the moon, but still, it's pretty cool.) The flight simulator adds an entirely new dimension to Google Earth as you try to buzz the St. Louis arch and fly through the Grand Canyon.

Building your own 3D Models

You can take Google Earth even farther. Google has released a free 3D modeling tool called Google SketchUp. While 3D modeling is never easy, this tool makes it relatively painless. You can download a copy of SketchUp here: http://sketchup.google.com/download/ You can build a model of your house, prominent buildings in your area, or whatever else you want. You can then submit your model to be included in Google Earth. Part of the reason Google Earth has buildings all over the world is because they have been contributed by the community. SketchUp is a great tool for talking about 3D Geometry, modeling, and architecture.

The Google Building maker is an online tool that's a little easier to use than SketchUp. It makes it easy to make buildings, but they are available for only a limited area. You can find this tool at http://sketchup.google.com/3dwh/buildingmaker.html

Google Earth Plugin Fun

One of the other amazing aspects of Google Earth is how it has been extended. The folks at Google created a version of Google earth called the GE plugin, which exposes the Google Earth engine to web browsers. Clever developers have added all sorts of interesting games and add-ons based on this technology:

GE flight simulator - (http://www.ge-flightsimulator.com/) This is as close to a real flight simulator as you'll see in a web browser. It adds a few features not in the standard GE simulator including a moving map, multiple aircraft, and multiplayer with chat.
Ships – (http://www.planetinaction.com/ships15/ ) If airplanes are too high-speed for you, maybe a boating simulation is a better match. Pilot river barges, a cruise ship, a catamaran, or even a zeppelin.
Helicopters - (http://www.planetinaction.com/helicopters/ ) This comes closer to a full-fledged game, where you control a helicopter and take part in various missions.
Monster Milk Truck (http://earth-api-samples.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/demos/milktruck/index.html ) This simple application allows you to drive a milk truck with monster wheels anywhere in the world. Pretty fun, huh?
College Basketball tour - (http://www.google.com/landing/collegebasketball2010/ ) Take a tour of all the stadia that hosted part of the 2010 NCAA tournament.

For any of these examples to work, you'll need to download and install the google earth plugin, available at http://www.google.com/landing/collegebasketball2010/

So how does this fit my school?

Clearly Google Earth is an impressive program, but it's not designed as a curriculum. It certainly won't replace traditional media for geography, science, or history, but it can provided added benefits in all these areas. Google Earth is especially suited to help technically-minded students interact with various subjects. Here's just a few project ideas to get you started.

Science

Look over weather patterns and make your own predictions based on cloud and radar images to the west of your town.
Investigate a wilderness web cam for several days and log the animals you see.
Look into the volcano, earthquake, and tsunami layers for information about these geoligic events.

Geography

Use Google Earth to more closely investigate areas you study, read about, or visit on mission trips. Look for photos, panoramic images, and videos of your favorite places.
Build a tour of a country or region you're studying. Use the audio tool to describe each area as you zoom into it.
Investigate mountain ranges, islands, and ocean trenches.

History

Use Google Earth to discover shipwrecks. Do more Internet and library research to discover the story behind the wrecks.
See how far back image data goes for your town. Create a poster or paper describing how your area has changed. (You can print out the results of GE searches.)
Create a tour that describes a historical trek: The Israelites in the desert, Sherman's march to the sea, or Napoleon’s misadventure in Russia.

Art – Architecture

Model your house or some other building and submit it to Google Earth
Locate famous sculptures and statues throughout the world.
Use SketchUp to build a 3D model of anything you can imagine.

Let me know if you come up with anything else. There is so much fun to be had with this app. Don't tell your kids they're learning stuff.

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Google Earth Part II

In this second installment of the Google Earth Series, I go into more detail on a number of interesting features of Google Earth.

Layers are an incredible addition to Google Earth. If you don't have the sidebar turned on, you'll need it, so go to the "View" menu and choose "sidebar" to make it appear. I described a number of interesting layers in the article, but you'll definitely want to look at the 3D buildings, weather, and Borders and Labels layers. There are tons of great features in the Gallery as well.

While it's called Google Earth, one planet is not enough for this monster of a program. Click the planet button on the toolbar and use it to look into space, the moon, and mars. Amazing. You can also bend time, by looking at a site over a period of time.

The flight simulator built into Google Earth is simply astonishing. It may take some practice to learn, but you'll soon be flying through the St. Louis Arch and buzzing your neighborhood. (At least that's what I do...)

You can also use Google Sketchup (another free tool) to create your own 3D models. You can download sketchup from here: http://sketchup.google.com/download/ Sketchup is pretty easy to use as 3D modelers go, but there's still a lot of detail. You may need to watch a few tutorials to get the hang of it, but it's quite powerful. You can add models to your own version of Google Earth, or you can submit them for the global database. (Sadly, they rejected the 500-foot chicken that I placed in Peoria. Ingrates.

If Google Sketchup is too complicated, there's another great building tool called "building maker." You can use this tool directly from the web site: http://sketchup.google.com/3dwh/buildingmaker.html. However, it is only available for specific well-known parts of the world.

The Google Earth Plugin is a special tool that adds google earth capabilities to an ordinary web browser. There are some phenomenal programs built with it. You can see a number of interesting examples at the plugin main site: http://www.google.com/earth/explore/products/plugin.html

Best of luck as you explore the world!