I was tickled to see the Google Earth education link https://www.google.com/earth/education/ in our list of tools to explore this week. One of my very favorite Google Earth layers of all time was the model of ancient Rome. It was such a trip to see the layout of all the famous buildings. It was even more fun to look between the ancient view and the modern view, checking out scenes of the coliseum the way it looked when new compared to how the city has grown around it over the centuries...almost millennia. Exploring Google Earth in virtual reality is even cooler. You get a real perspective of landmarks worldwide. You can even 'walk' around and tour the inside the coliseum.
While the Google Earth software and data offer some excellent learning opportunities, ESRI, I think, has some of the best geospatial education resources. Check out https://www.esri.com/en-us/industries/education/overview for some samples. One if ESRI's biggest education strengths is the breadth of contexts they cover, from the water cycle to sustainable development. Story maps are one tool they offer that can be used to great effect in the classroom. https://www.esri.com/en-us/arcgis/products/arcgis-storymaps/overview
Map are a remarkable cognitive tool to help us understand the world around us!
Hello Lee,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing these useful resources! I wasn't good at geography when I was in school, and I don't read a map pretty well. It was so boring. However, I pretty enjoyed exploring Google Earth. I could learn not only geography but also history or art. I virtually went to Coliseum and Pyramid. I was happy to feel that I was traveling around the world again.
It seems that the ancient Rome view is not working anymore. Bummer :(
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqMXIRwQniA
Oh, I'm sorry you didn't get to play around with the ancient Rome layer. I'm glad you found some other fun places to go, though!
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