I’ve updated my Google Earth blog with information about Google Earth resources, published by the Wilderness Society, that describe the impact of logging in Tasmania.

Tasmanian logging issues make a good teaching alternative to the usual example of Brazil .
Despite being just a couple of days old, Google Earth Library looks set to become an essential blog for news of content rather than placemarks. The editor plans on addidng 70 to 100 posts per week until he has worked through his backlog which means that I won’t be subscribing to the feed just yet!
It’s a collaborative blog with several really useful files already posted. I’m particularly looking forward to the development of the education category and wish topomat all the best in his endeavours!
News of a great new Google Earth layer that is UK-specific (for a refreshing change!)
Barry Hunter of the extremely useful Nearby.org.uk website has created a superlayer that displays images from the Geograph project (Creative Commons photographs that will eventually represent every square kilometer of the UK.)
The link to the layer can be found on Barry’s blog
This is what you see:

Zoom in to the concentric circles identified by OS reference letters

Camera icons appear at higher zoom levels…

…which are then replaced by picture icons ( a little slowly)

Click the picture icons to display the Geograph photo in the info balloon.
I have written up a new Google Earth teaching idea that combines a study of the modern classic Northern Lights by Philip Pullman, with an investigation of Svalbard, one of the settings for the book. The book is published in the USA as The Golden Compass.

source: Wikipedia
Students act as location-scouts, examining the terrain in Google Earth and adding placemarks to indicate where they would film the various action sequences.
Example outcome:

download Google Earth placemark
The film version of the book entitled The Golden Compass, is in production. There is an official site for the film.
Go to the lesson page on Juicy Geography
Ogle Earth has discovered an incredibly useful resource for teaching around the issues of conflict and migration and human rights violations. The Geospatial Technologies and Human Rights project is published by Lars Bromley at the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Stefan points to Google Earth technology holding future world leaders to account for the humanitarian outcomes of their actions. For the first time carefully sourced and researched satellite imagery can be used to support lessons about forced migration and similar topics. The images below show the impact of recent attacks on villages in Madoua, Chad.
March 2006
November 2006
Google Earth file for above images
The Human Rights Google Earth layers cover Chad, Sudan, Lebanon and Israel and Zimbabwe. They take a long time to load in some cases; worth remembering before using them in a class situation. Find the layers here
This post has also been published at Juicy Geography’s Google Earth blog
I discovered the World Gazetteer of population of towns and cities.
The data can be conveniently downloaded as a Google Earth file which opens a placemark with the data in the balloon as shown:
click to enlarge
A very useful resource, whether or not the Google Earth feature is used. A related post can be found at my Google Earth blog.
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