Google Earth is a great visualization tool. The Google Earth Gallery contains many data sets that you can “lay” over the Earth and explore.

Starting Google Earth

• Download Google Earth at http://earth.google.com
• The user guide is located at: http://earth.google.com/userguide/v4/
• Open Google Earth and play!

Navigation

• You can use the arrows, or type locations into the “Fly to” box. Locations can be entered as street addresses, street intersections, lat and long, and often by name.
• In the “Fly to” box, type 323 Cypress Circle Lane, Holmen WI
• The data is a tiny bit off…my old house (finally sold in January!) has a brown roof and a fenced backyard. Can you see me waving?
• Now, fly to my previous “day job” by typing in 16 street and State Street, La Crosse, WI. My office was in the building on the corner.
• Next, copy and paste 43°25'0.92"N 89°43'58.90"W into the Fly to box. This will take you to Devil’s Lake – an interesting geological site. Zoom out a bit and browse the pictures along the East shore. Devil’s Doorway and Balanced Rock are pretty cool. A few hundred million years ago, the tops of these red quartzite bluffs (no vegetation) were islands in a shallow tropical ocean. Evidence of storm events and ripples in the stone (caused by waves) are still visible today.
• Now, fly to my “night job” by typing in Montana State University.
• Fly home.

Let’s Add some Data Layers

• Go to the Google Earth Gallery ((http://earth.google.com/gallery/index.html)
• Find and download the World Oil Consumption file. (Note: these are .kmz files – a format specifically for Google Earth).
• Open the file.
• You should see a folder in the “places” section of the sidebar. It will take a minute or two to load the data set.
• You can remove the data layer by clicking on the box near the appropriate folder in the sidebar.

Now, Let’s add some data that we can manipulate.

• Find and the Rising Sea Level Animation in the Google Earth Gallery
• Open the Rising Sea Level Animation file
• The animation opens overlooking San Francisco
• Fly to the World Trade Center.
• Zoom out enough so that you can see water to both the Northwest and Southeast of the World Trade Center.
• If the Greenland Ice Sheet begins to melt, scientists estimate that global sea levels could rise 1 meter (partial melt) up to 7 meters.
• You should see options for 1m – 100m in the left sidebar. If you don’t, click on the “data 1-100m” folder.
• Click on the 1 m box to add a data layer for a 1 meter sea level rise.
• Click on the 2 m box, then click on the 1m box (to remove the 1m layer)
• Click on the 3 m box, then click on the 2 m box
• Continue through 7 meters!
• Zoom out to see the rest of New York (Note: The data sets are only for New York and San Francisco)

And now for something completely different.

• Remove all of the data sets / layers.
• Click on the planet icon at the top of Google Earth.
• This is the night sky as viewed from your location (in Google Earth).
• Watch the video at (http://earth.google.com/userguide/v4/ug_sky.html) for a quick overview of the sky view.
• Browse!
• My favorite sky view “tour” is the Life of a Star tour located in the Education Center folder.
• Click the planet icon again to exit sky view.

Here are is a resource of Google Earth activities.

Browse the Google Earth Gallery for other data sets that you find interesting or educationally valuable. How might you use this in your classroom?