Animal Migration on Google Earth

04Jul08

I do love the Google Earth product, as seen by at previous post where I share a method to help students visualize the vast size and distances that exist in our solar system. TechCrunch has written today about the increasing number of scientists who are using Google Earth to visualize their information. I find Google earth fantastic for this, as it lets you take data that may appear to only have one set of connections, but by mapping it geographically other trends appear. The example they share is the migration of animals. This could be displayed to students via a data projector, but I think a more useful exercise would be to let them explore the data within the confines of a structured assignment (to start) and then let them search for their own connections. I don’t know what that assignment would look like right now, but when I figure it out I will be sure to share it here.

Does anyone have any ideas?