[TIPS] Google.org/egs

http://www.google.org/egs/

I was pointed to this from the Google Earth blog post here: http://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2008/08/googleorg_visualizes_us_geothermal.html. My opinion – if you’re not already using Google Earth to teach Geography or Social Studies, then you NEED to invest some time here. THERE’S WAY more to it than just looking up your home.

Maybe you’ve been talking about the global warming issue – both sides of the debate. Maybe you’ve been talking about how our need for oil drives our foreign policies. Maybe you’ve been talking about alternative energy sources, like wind, hydroelectric, and others. Then you NEED to check out that website (top) and the gearth blog post. In fact, I’ve said before, you NEED to subscribe to the gearth blog. It’s EXCELLENT!!!

There’s a KMZ (google earth) file that is referred to in this post, and you’re going to want to download it and check it out. It shows a map of the US colored in to show the amount of geothermal energy that is available in the different locations.

By the way, do YOU have your students creating and sharing kmz files as part of their assignments? If not, why not? Wouldn’t it make a GREAT assignment for the students to create a world map showing, say, conflicts of the world, or religions of the world, etc, and tie it in to the news, maybe news that they have found at iCue. If you’re studying the relationships of geography to exports and inports, what better way than to create a kmz gile that takes the reader on a virtual tour?

If your teachers don’t know how to use Google earth, then why don’t YOU take the bull by the horns and set up a series of workshops to show them how. There are lots of online tutorials to help, as well. And, if the site isn’t blocked at school (don’t get me started), show them the gearth blog, as well.

Tutorials (just a few)
http://earth.google.com/userguide/v4/tutorials/index.html
http://www.gelessons.com/lessons/
http://tipline.blogspot.com/2008/07/tips-google-earth-tutorial.html – my July post that points to a tutorial or two
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=google+earth&emb=0# - lots of videos on the google video site
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=google+earth&search_type=&aq=f – videos on youtube
http://www.youtube.com/user/mkbarth - LOTS of very good tutorials