Here are some suggested activites to introduce the Gapminder site to students

Download an illustrated guide to Gapminder (Word doc) Thanks very much to Val Vannet who produced the first version of this document. This could be printed off and laminated. Thanks also to Alan Parkinson for mentioning the Trails feature in his recent comment. Gapminder also provide an excellent tutorial on the application here.

Mapping development indicators
Start by selecting Map, and looking for patterns by selecting different development indicators for the countries.

Correlating development data
Select Chart and compare different indicators, for example Life Expectancy and Income. What correlations can be found?

Students could be asked to try and identify data that gives a positive correlation on comparison (e.g. carbon dioxide emisions and income) or negative correlation (e.g. fertility rate and phone use)

Analysing trends
Try choosing Life Expectancy and analysing changes over time (select Time for the x axis.) Track selected countries by selecting them, clicking the Trails box and playing the animation.

In the screenshot I coloured the countries by income , but why has Botswana, a middle income country, seen a dramatic decline in life expectancy in recent years? Students really should know why!

Exploring urbanization trends
Compare Urban Population and Time, and track countries from different income groups. In the screenshot example I changed the circle size to one size and the colour to Income Group.

In a recent lesson, these activities proved sufficient to turn the students into fairly competent Gapminder users.

I recommend watching Hans Roslings’ entertaining presentation at the TED Talks and visiting the Gapminder.org site for more resources and downloads.

The new product is not designed to compete directly with Google Earth and isn’t really a consumer product, but a platform to publish GIS data. It is powered by ArcGIS Server and should be regarded as a series of globes with worldwide data on a range of topics. The globes will be called ArcGIS Online Services and encompass a range of themes, for example worldwide streets, terrain and physiography and more. The new virtual globe will be free, though you’d the full Arc GIS product to create new content. It remains to be seen whether ArcGIS Explorer will be a useful classroom tool, though ESRI do actively promote the use of their products in schools.
According to the podcast, ArcGIS Explorer is on the point of being rolled out. Link to download site

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As one zooms to street level the data is recalculated, and switching to satellite view enables a close analysis of the data. Fun, and useful not only as a GIS demonstration, but as a resource for teaching urban geography.

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Thanks to Andrew Field whose recommendation of Wink, an excellent free screen capture program, helped me prepare a Flash-based tutorial to the project files that the lesson requires.

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Hopefully, more teachers will have a go at this activity, which has been thoroughly tried and tested. “Visualizing a Safer City” offers students the opportunity to understand the principles behind GIS. The visual nature of the activity appeals to all types of learners and the students will appreciate that city planners in San Francisco will be doing an identical task using similar data sets. The task demonstrates the extraordinary potential of applications such as Google Earth to achieve real and meaningful outcomes without the “tech subverting the teach” (to hack a phrase from Ewan Mackintosh thanks to Ollie Bray!)

Get the tutorials, project files, a video and a pdf guide to the resources in one folder.
I have made a short video to introduce the lesson as well as a PDF guide to the teaching resources. These are available free of charge, together with all the other resources on CD ROM or via email. Contact me if you would like them. (A small donation or a free trial of eMusic via this link or just a couple of your own resources would be nice in return)