Chesterfield, VA Google Earth Workshop

Welcome, colleagues, to the "Designing and Creating Earth Science Lessons with Google Earth" workshop. During this session, we will explore some of the ways you can incorporate the incredible geospatial displays that are a part of Google Earth into your everyday lessons, activities, and labs. You'll learn what you can do with Google Earth, and how to create and customize kml files to your specific needs and interests, and you'll leave the workshop with lots of new resources and ideas to make your classes way more interesting and interactive for your students. We'll work through the development of Google Earth tour together, and then each of you will develop a Google Earth lesson to bring back to your classroom. You will also be given the links to several lessons that are ready to use as soon as you download them. Contact workshop leader Steve Kluge at steve.kluge@gmail.com with any questions or ideas you may have - either before or after the workshop. Online and .pdf versions of the manual we'll refer to are available here.

Useful Links for the Workshop

Google Earths:

Maine Kayaking - something I did a few weeks ago - no science, but a good example of how GE can be used to relate images to places.
Hurricane Dean - directed inquiry reveals the mechanics of hurricane growth and movement
Glacial Features at Giant Mt. in the Adirondacks - an exploration of glacial features in images and on maps
NY Landscape Regions in Google Earth - An NSF funded cooperative project
A Field Trip on Cameron's Line on the Housatonic River in New Milford, CT
Eric Fermann's Google Earth for Teachers page - Some links may be dead, and the quality of user submitted kml files varies. It's a good place to get ideas and starting points.
Google's own Education web page - lots of information, data, and ideas.

U-shaped valleys at Crater Lake - Glacial valleys truncated by the destruction of Mt. Mazama
Holy Cross, Colorado glaciology - Map and tour of glacial features near Leadville, CO
Virginia Geologic Map - Notice how geology affects land use!
Geologic Map of the United States An incredible resource!
Mt. Katahdin, Maine - a tough hike at the end of the Appalachian Trail
Lots of Map Overlays - examples of what's possible
Field Trip in Eastern NY - For a field trip I led this summer
Front Range Geology - this set grew out of an Earthcache project sponsored by the National Geographic Society and administered by the Geological Society of America
GE Images used on an assessment

Pocahontas Park Images:

Cool New Tool:

GPSVisualizer Overlay Tool

Pre-workshop Information and Ideas

Bring a USB Drive with you - it'll make it easier for you to bring your creations home
Bring digital images you might want to use in a Google Earth Lesson - you can bring them on a USB drive, or better yet open a free flickr account and post your images there. Ultimately, you'll want your images on line anyway, so a free flickr account will give you a head start!
Think of a place or places you'd like your students to explore - You'll have a chance to develop a lesson or activity around those places. If you have images, bring 'em with you (see above)
Bring your own wireless enabled laptop - it's totally non-essential, but it's nice to work on your own machine (NOTE: I'm not even sure the facility we're meeting in is wireless capable, so don't worry too much about this one!)

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Updated on ... August 26, 2007