GOOGLE EARTH IN THE GEOSCIENCE CLASSROOM: AN EFFICIENT TOOL FOR EFFECTIVE TEACHING

The ubiquitous Google Earth – now installed on over 300 million machines worldwide – provides teachers, instructors, and professors with a vast array of pre-made and easily customized visualizations of both cultural and physical aspects of Earth’s geosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere. The program’s reliability, short and gentle learning curve, built in KML compiling/editing features, smooth interface with other Google products like Panoramio and Youtube, and its ubiquity put the efficient preparation of interesting, informative, and engaging demonstrations, lessons, and activities within the grasp of even the most time challenged classroom and lab instructors. Presented here are examples of creative and engaging ways geospatial information displayed in Google Earth is being used to help K-16 students visualize, investigate, and interpret various aspects of the Earth system. Free and low cost private and commercial resources, as well as content individually designed for specific classes and field trips, will be featured along with suggestions and ideas for creating and incorporating Google Earth visualizations into your own classes.