Google Earth in the Classroom - Dee Thomas Bentonville Public Schools

Google Earth in the Classroom

           Dee Thomas
     Bentonville Public Schools

What is Google Earth?
Google Earth is free program which allows users
  to:
• Explore geographic locations both on Earth
  and in space.
• View Buildings in 3D
• View Featured Content
• Create interactive projects which include,
  images, text, video and sound.

Exploring Google Earth
• When Google Earth launches, it automatically loads a
  folder and places it into “temporary places” section. In
  order to save locations you will need to move folders
  under “My Places” and save.
• A plus sign + indicates there are sub menus under the
  “sightseeing” heading.
• To access one of the locations, double click on the
  location.
• To move through the list of locations, click on the .
• To view a location or placemark in detail, double click
  on the link, in the left sidebar.

The Google Toolbar

             Add Polygon     Add Path Add ruler    Sky View
Full
Screen                                                          Printer

                                                              View in
                                                              Google Maps
Create a
Place mark                 Add Image   Earth day
                           overlay     view

The Google Sidebar
       Search bar
                                     Tour Player

   My Places

                                   Set transparency
Sightseeing
                                   level of overlays

      Layers
                                          Tour player

Setting up Google Earth
• You can set a default start location each time
  you launch Google Earth, by navigating to the
  location, then in the toolbar, click on view,
  then make this my start location.
• You can also set options in by going to Tools in
  the menu bar and selecting options.

Layers in Sidebar

  •Use the Layer feature in Google only when necessary.
  Each layer added to Google Earth will add rendering time
  each time the map is moved and redrawn.

  •Especially taxing, yet very cool, is the use of the 3D layer.

  • Often the layers can be extremely useful teaching
  resource, such as the geographic options.

  •Using the Digital Global coverage layer, will assist
  students in viewing when the latest image of each
  location was last taken.

Navigating Google Earth
            North Return

                                Look Joystick

         Move
         Joystick
                             Zoom Slider

You can also use the arrow
buttons on the keyboard to
navigate

New Features
                                    Sun and Shadows time slider/player

         Discover the night sky, option in toolbar

                    Jump to street view- option in layers

Hide 3D Buildings – in 3D view, right click on building, then choose
Hide, will not reappear until Google Earth is restarted

Searching a location the “Fly To”
• Using Google Earth, you can search by:
• Street Address
• General name or location Name
• Coordinates
Click on the Magnifying Glass (search button)

Using “Directions” in Google Earth
• The Directions Tab allows users to view travel
  from one location to another.
• Key the address or location site in the first text
  box, then tab to the second and add the
  destination address or location.
• Use the navigation options to view or the
  press the play button on the tour bar.
• The File, Print option to print the directions.

Find Businesses
• You can use the “Find Businesses” tab to
  locate a specific type of business in a
  designated area on the map.
• Navigate to the location you are interested in,
  key the “type” of business you are looking for.
• Google Earth marks the businesses in balloons
  and provides additional information if
  available.

New Project
• To begin a new project using Google Earth it is
  very helpful to keep all the information in one
  folder.
• To create a new folder, click on Add in the
  menu bar, then folder or use the short cut
  combination Ctrl+Shift+N
• Once created this folder will appear in the My
  Places area of the search panel.

Tips for Projects

• Have students design a storyboard prior to
  beginning their project. The storyboard should
  contain the locations they are going to select, and
  the images, sounds or video, they will be adding
  to the location.
• Keep all images in a single folder, keep image
  names as short as possible.
• Make sure images are resized to less than 3” for a
  better fit and reduce the resolution. 72 dpi is
  perfect for web viewing.

Adding Place Marks
• Place Marks are like pushpins which help identify a specific
  location.
• Key the location address in the “what you are looking for”
  text box and click the magnifying glass.
• You can use the navigation controls to zoom in, out or
  change direction.
• Click on the add placemark icon to add a placemark.
• You can change the icon for the placemark by clicking on
  the icon button in the dialogue box.
• You can add text information to this placemark by keying
  the information in the description area.
• This is also the location you will add additional multimedia.

Adding an image to the placemark
• You can add an image to a placemark. Google earth supports the
  following: JPG,BMP,GIF, TIFF, TGA, and PNG formats.
• The most common issue when inserting and image overlay is the size of
  the image. It is important to keep this in mind when designing your project
  or edit graphics in a graphics editor prior to adding to the project. Larger
  images can also be memory intensive. Images less than 3” in size and
  saved at 72dpi is prefect.
• All objects added into the placemark, must be added using hypertext
  markup language (HTML). I have prepared a cheat sheet to assist you with
  the basics.
• In the preplanning we saved the images in a folder, and gave them a short
  name. To insert the image in the placemark you will need to know the
  location path to the image. To get this path, you will right click on the
  image and go to properties. Highlight this path, right click and choose
  copy.
• You will need to start the line by keying

Geo Tagging in Picasa
•   Picasa is another program owned by Google. Picasa is a graphics organizer which will
    gather all graphics located on your computer and put them into one location.
•   To “tag” a graphic in Picasa, select the photos you want to use, then click on Tools in the
    Menu bar, then select, Geotag, Geotag with Google Earth. This will bring the photos
    into Google Earth.
•   Navigate to the location you want to place the photo, make sure the cross hair is over
    the location you want the photo to appear.
•   Click on the Geotag button, then done. The photo will be placed on the map in Google
    Earth, once it appears, the item can be edited to appear as a place mark by right
    clicking on going to properties.

“Geotagging” in Google Video
• If you create a video and save it to Google Video’s it can be
  Geotagged for use on Google Earth.
• Upload the video to Google Video. Once the video has been
  uploaded, click on the Embed Video link, a drop down box
  with coding will appear. Copy this coding and paste it into
  your properties area of the place mark in Google Earth.
  This will embed the video into the place mark.

Graphic Overlays
• Graphic Overlays can be in one of the
  following formats
• BMP, GIF, JPG or TIFF
• The graphic overlay lays directly over the map
  image.

Saving a Project
• The file format for Google Earth is .KMZ this
  extension format must be reopened in Google
  Earth.
• Once the project is completed, be sure you
  have the project selected, a check mark in all
  boxes, then click File, Save, in “My Places”.

Resources
• Google Earth Users Guide
• Google Earth tutorials
• Google Earth for teachers

Fun Stuff
• Geo Greetings – Courtesy of Cyndi Bailey