Google Earth is a wonderful free online teaching tool.  It features maps and satellite images that you can zoom in on, rotate, and examine in detail.  You can also add layers of images and other elements.  Go to http://earth.google.com to download this program. You should be downloading Google Earth 5.0.  Once the program is loaded, you can click on the Google icon on your desktop to open this program, type in your home address or another address in the upper left Google Earth will ‘fly to your house.  Spend some time learning how this all works and check out the Search, Places and Layers section in the left column.  You and your students can literally visit any place on earth.

There are a number of new features that Google Earth 5 now has that will be of interest to teachers as GE can be used as a powerful teaching tool in the classroom.
 
The planet Mars in now included with this version so now you can take your students to Mars.  Click on the “Switch between Earth, Sky and other Planets” icon on the Google Earth toolbar at the top of your screen. 

You can now view and explore the oceans of Earth.  With Google Earth open, check the oceans layer, located on the lower left hand side of the screen.  Open this up, by clicking on the + arrow and you will see a variety of options for you and your students.  Some of these options will take you to a particular place in the Ocean. One of the most interesting features is the ability to ‘fly’ underwater in some areas to view under-ocean features. 

Another new feature is called ‘Historical Imagery’.  Previous versions of Google Earth displayed only one image of a given place at a given time. With this new feature, you can now move back and forth in time to reveal imagery from years and even decades past, revealing changes over time. Choose a site and then click on the clock found on the toolbar located at the top of screen. You can now move the slider back and forth and move through time. This feature would be very useful for various History and Science topics.

Google Earth 5.0 also includes a new ‘Touring’ feature. GE users have created wonderful layers to share with others, and now there is a way to record these ‘tours.  The Touring feature makes it easy to create a narrated, fly-through tour that can be shared.  Click on the record button found on the toolbar located at the top of screen and you then can record your narrated navigations through/to your tour destinations.  Teachers could now use this feature to create a variety of educational tours that can be used to supplement textbooks and educational topics.

Google Earth can also be used as a backdrop for overlay files Go to http://www.gearthhacks.com   This website contains over 20,000 files that can be used with Google Earth.  You can search by category or keyword.  There are various categories, such as 3-D models, current events, past events and historical places.  You can download these files and then open them up in Google Earth.  They become overlays so to speak.  This website will allow you to see the real power of Google Earth.  To download a file, click on File Downloads in the upper left corner.    Scroll down until you see the listing of categories in blue.  Files can be downloaded to your computer or USB drive. Overlay files must have Google Earth loaded in order to work correctly.  Once the overlay file is downloaded, must click on the file and it will open automatically in Google Earth.

Some of the more interesting overlays that could be used in a classroom are overlay files dealing with:

Mt St Helens, flight 1549 in the Hudson river, Mt Rushmore, Pearl Harbor, the number and location of missile silos in the US, Disney Land in 3-D, the Louve in 3-D, Amazon River tour, Hurricane Rita, Mt Everest climbing tour, all Muslium countries, decline of the German Empire from 1919-1945, Paris in 3D, the Giza Plato in Egypt, Vatican City and Neuschwanstein Castle in 3-D, Iceland sites, mayor ruptures of the San Andreas fault, and tectonic plate boundaries of the world.

Here are 2 other overlay download sites that some of you may find of interest:
www.googlelittrips.org.  This site contains various Google Earth files that will allow you and your students to follow the travels of characters from famous novels.  Scroll down until you see the listing of categories in blue.
http://vacationworld.googlepages.com/files has a number of educational based kmz files for download.

Google Earth 5.0 and the related overlays could be used as a great resource in Science, Social Studies, Language Arts, Art and Music.  Users have found Google Earth to be an easy to learn, technology based teaching tool that most will use in their future classroom as well as on a personal level.

By Laura Turner