Panoramas on Mars

Google Earth isn't limited to just views of the Earth. You can also view Mars and the Moon in Google Earth. You can take tours of Mars and view panoramic imagery of Mars in Google Earth. But if you don't have Google Earth installed on your computer you're not excluded from viewing the panoramas. Recently, through Google Maps Mania, I learned about a site that is publishing panoramic imagery of Mars.

TripGeo hosts some panoramic imagery that can be viewed online without having Google Earth installed on your computer. The imagery comes from various NASA missions to Mars. The coding was done by Keir Clarke (the blogger at Google Maps Mania) and Rob McMahon.

Another Earth - Compare Maps Side-by-Side

Yesterday, I shared a great resource for geography teachers. That resource is called GE Teach. GE Teach was developed by a high school geography teacher. One of the nice features of GE Teach is the option to compare to views of Google Earth side-by-side. This morning I found a similar website called Another Earth.

Another Earth provides a split screen for comparing views of the Earth side-by-side. One neat use for Another Earth is to use the time sliders to compare views of the same places in the world at different times. You can also use Another Earth to compare different places at the same point in time. In the screen capture below I used the sun layer to compare levels of sunlight at the same time South America and Australia.

Click image to view full size.

Applications for Education
Another Earth doesn't offer as many layers for comparison as GE Teach does, but it is still a good tool for students to use to compare views of the Earth across time and space.

Finding Cool Places in Google Earth and Maps

You can look at all kinds of interesting places in Google Earth and Maps if you search correctly and long enough. But if you're searching for something small and you don't know the coordinates, you might get very frustrated. That's where two sites that I recently discovered come in handy.

Google Earth Cool Places is a site that catalogs links and files for cool, interesting things found in Google Earth. You can search the database or just browse using the categories featured on the site's homepage. Take a look at the Statues and Monuments category to find the Arch in St. Louis or the Crazy Horse Monument in South Dakota.

MapLandia is a site similar to Google Earth Cool Places. The difference between the two is MapLandia offers the option to view places within the site using the embedded Google Maps.

Applications for Education
Google Earth and Google Maps are great resources not only for social studies teachers but also for math, science, and literature teachers. Math teachers can use Google Earth and Maps for lessons in measurement. Science teachers may want to explore using Google Earth for monitoring CO2 emissions around the world. Literature teachers should explore Google Lit Trips to learn how students can create literature tours in Google Earth.

The US Presidents in Google Earth

Monday is President's Day in the United States. In celebration of that day, Google has published a new kmz file containing images and links to information about each former President of the United States. You can download the file and launch it in Google Earth or view it here using the Google Earth browser plug-in. The file shows where each president was from, offers an image of each president, provides a link to more information about each president, and shows how many states were in the Union when each president was elected.

Applications for Education

In their post announcing the publication of this file, Google offered some good suggestions for using Google Earth on President's Day. This is what they suggested:

• Explore the White House, Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial and other historical monuments in 3D and have students explain how architecture is used to honor people, concepts and establishments
• View a 3D model of Valley Forge National Park in Google Earth
• View a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation signed by Abraham Lincoln and map the areas where slavery ended, as well as the areas that were not initially covered by this executive order
• Discuss the famous painting “Washington Crossing the Delaware” by German American artist Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze and use the ruler tool in Google Earth to measure the width of the Delaware River.

More Historical Imagery Available in Google Earth

Back in February Google released historical imagery in Google Earth of 35 European cities as they looked during WWII. Today, Google announced that they have added to Google Earth even more historical imagery of London and Paris. This imagery like the imagery in the previous release is aerial imagery that can be accessed by opening the time slider in Google Earth. If you don't know how to open the time slider, see the image below.

Applications for Education
Many times I've had students comment to me that exploring Google Earth and Google Maps has been very helpful for them in recalling information about our history lessons. The historical imagery can be useful for providing students with geolocated imagery to aid in recall of information about historical events.

Here are some related items that may be of interest to you:
How to Make Placemarks and Tours in Google Earth
Google Earth Across the Curriculum
Free 33 Page Guide - Google for Teachers