The Google Earth layer prepared for the FCO and Met Office is featured on Channel 4 News. It is the most complex Google Earth layer that Digital Explorer has created to date and we are very proud that it has got such exposure.

We look forward to the layer being used in classrooms across the world to inspire young people to make a difference and seize the opportunity to develop green enterprise and technologies.

The layer can be downloaded from the FCO website.

This is the fifth entry in a series of expedition based Google Earth tours from Digital Explorer.

Download the Google Earth tour – Road to Shimshal 2006

You will need Google Earth to view the tour. If you don’t have Google Earth, you can download it for free:

Contact Digital Explorer, if you would like to make a Google Earth tour for your expedition or fieldwork.

Great email from a student from the Emirates who came on our Offscreen Expedition in 2008… Makes it all worthwhile!

The Offscreen Expedition was a big turning point in my life. Since then, so much has changed. Before, I was a careless and reckless young guy with no real interest in what was happening in my life. Just before I was due to leave for the UK, I considered dropping out, but for no particular reason other than I didn’t think it would be exciting. But from the first moment in London I knew that I had been wrong. When I saw the rest of the group waiting at Heathrow Airport, my fears and reservations turned to excitement and anticipation.

It was my first time away from home. I used to lose my temper quickly, and to be mad the entire time. I addition, I used to think that I am right all time, but with a team of Stiffin, Jimmy, Aya, Robert, and all the guys changed in my life. It was not a tour or a vacation; it was a journey that I have to learn from it as much as I can because it will not happen again. Jimmy was a kind of a tuff leader; like a Commander in the army, but I learned how to manage my time from him. Also, he gave me an Inspiration how to respect people time. Stiffen was a much different; a unique man with all of these art talents. I got to understand from him who I can deal with the different kinds of people even I do not like them, and how I can get the people to my side. All the other guys I got something special from them even the other students.

Here I am now, in the United States; a student who represent myself, my family, my country, and also my Offscreen Expedition. When I got the chance to talk about something special in my life I always talk about my Offscreen Expedition, and how my life changed since I had it. On the other hand, the expedition was a start for I where I am now, and a start for studying abroad. I owe the Expedition all my life and I will not forget ever those days.

Mohammed
Terre Haute, USA
Feb, 26, 2010

Have a look at the School Grounds Project to see how to do a micro-expedition in your school grounds, using a whole range of multimedia tools. There’s also Digital Explorer’s blogging service for school expeditions, have a look at a trip to the Alps last year.

Finally, don’t forget to register to be sent updates of new resources and opportunities.

A copy of the presentation from the GIS session at the Royal Geographical Society on 25 January 2010.

Have a look at the Digital Explorer manuals and the School Grounds Projects materials and get in touch if you need any more information.

52% of Britons believe the nation is deeply divided along religious lines. 46% say religious diversity has had a negative impact on the country. 55% would be troubled if a large mosque were built in their neighbourhood. Only 15% would feel the same about a church.
Manchester University social attitudes survey/ Daily Mail

Half of British children aged five to nine own a mobile phone, despite Government advice that no one under 16 should have one. 75% of children aged seven to 15 have one. The average age for a child to get his first mobile phone is eights and the average child’s bills is £10.50 a month.
PhonePay Plus/News of the World

The full article in the Daily Mail reveals that “those with no educational qualifications were twice as likely to have negative attitudes towards Muslims as university graduates.” There is a clear case here for more education to help people understand each other’s cultures.

It is sad to read of the divisions in society, and we are not leaving the next generation with a great social inheritance. Rather than say that young people should not have mobile phones until they are aged sixteen or over, maybe we should look at ways that mobiles could be used to communicate across boundaries socially, culturally and internationally.

First things first, if you don’t have Google Earth, download it for your own computer and then be sure to pester the IT office to download it for your school. See the Digital Explorer research if you need to make a case to senior management. To use Google Maps fully you will need to have a Google account, sign up if you haven’t already.

Virtual Atlas

Here are some basic ideas about how to use Google Earth and Google Maps as a virtual atlas projected on a screen or interactive whiteboard. Some of these ideas could be used by pupils on individual computers.

Art: search for locations of galleries, artists, locations of landscapes or use geographic features to inspire Land Art projects
Citizenship: show where events are taking place
Design And Technology: identify different types of shelter in different environments
English: search for locations of books, authors and locations or use locations to inspire creative writing and poetry (e.g. Romantic poets)
Geography: search for locations, physical and urban features and go on virtual field trips
History: search for locations of events and go on virtual field trips
Maths: use for real world distance/speed/time puzzles or use for fractions – e.g. find a car park and give the fraction of number of places filled
Modern Foreign Languages: search for locations to contextualise language learning or ask pupils to give directions in target language
Primary: a range of interesting ideas from Tom Barrett
RE: search for locations e.g. Bodh Gaya, Medina, Bethlehem
Science: look at power generation – wind farms, oil rigs, coal mines (open cast best)

Geographical Encyclopaedia
There is a vast amount of additional information available to users of Google Earth and Google Maps above and beyond basic map data and satellite imagery. In Google Earth, much of this information is stored in layers which are accessible to anyone opening the application. You can also search for kml or kmz files (these are the file types that Google Earth uses) and download information from the internet. When using Google My Maps, users also have access to a large directory of content that they can open.

Art pen tours of art or architecture – e.g. Art Nouveau
Citizenship: use prepared lessons on Google UK Schools site or look at layers such as Fair Trade and the Crisis in Darfur (under the Global Awareness section)
Design And Technology: open tours relevant to technology – e.g. Green buildings
English: open tours of well known novels from Google Lit Trips
Geography: open tours from a range of sites such as Antarctica or see lessons from Google UK Schools
History: see prepared lessons
Maths: looking at the volume of solids – e.g. pyramids
Primary: have a look at some of the teaching ideas on the Google UK schools Site

Digital Mapmaking
Once you are confident with using Google Earth and Google Maps in the classroom, you can start creating your own content and working with your pupils so that they can create their own work as well. Download the Digital Explorer basic manual on using Google Earth to help you create your own content. There is also an advanced manual for additional techniques. Information on Google Maps can be found in the school grounds projects manual.

Art: add more advanced content to placemarks such as paintings, interviews with artists, etc.
Citizenship: Crime local area study, adding data, information and video interviews to a map with potential to collaborate with other schools in the area
Design And Technology: Create a tour showing how shelter and environment are related or plan urban development using 3D polygons as buildings
English: create a tour of a Shakespeare play with images and voiceover or find locations to make a film of a book
Geography: import GPS data and then add photographs and video from a fieldtrip
History: create a narrated tour of an historical event
Modern Foreign Languages: create tours of tourist spots in target language country with images or narrate a tour in the target language
RE: narrate the life of a religious figure with placemarks for main points
Science: plot species distribution in the school grounds using My Maps and share and collaborate with other schools to cover a larger area

Problem solving
When you are confident creating your own content, you can start to transfer these to more project based and enquiry style learning. Google Earth and Google Maps can provide a much greater level of engagement as well as activate a host of different learning styles and thinking skills.

Noel Jenkins has produced some excellent examples on his Juicy Geography site.

But you can come up with your own ideas without doing too much preparation, once your class have the skills needed. For example, if you are teaching a class about calculating distance, speed and time and you wanted to assess how well they were doing, consider setting them a challenge using Google Maps. How long would it take to complete the Three Peaks Challenge? Pupils would have to research the locations, plan a route, and work out whether the time estimates in Google Maps were accurate (pretty sure you could drive faster in some places). This task could involve teamwork, synthesis, judgements, comparisons, research and a host of other skills and above all it might just be more fun. And how do you calculate how much time it takes to walk up Ben Nevis?

Out and about
This is where Google Earth and Google Maps really come alive for learning. Pupils have moved from being passive consumers looking at maps and content on screens to being active creators of content. In this final step, teachers and pupils use Google Earth and Google Maps as tools for sharing pupil voice and generating discussion and change on important issues.

Have a look at this video to see how Google Earth, Google Maps and other tools were used at one school and then download the manual (PDF, 2.6MB), the Teaching Materials (ZIP, 21MB) and have a look at an example blog and see an example Google Earth file.

Here’s a copy of the presentation to accompany the talks at the Playful Learning Zone at this year’s BETT show.

This year, we talked about how to progress with using Google Earth and Google Maps in the classroom all the way from using them as virtual atlases to using them as a base for local area projects and recording school trips and projects.

For a range of teaching ideas across the curriculum see the post 40+ ideas on using Google Earth and Maps in the classroom.

I saw this story develop this morning via twitter. Andy Pag is 13,500km into the inspiring Biotruck Expedition attempting to travel around the world emitting less than 2 tonnes of CO2, and discovering how other people are cutting their footprint. I enjoy seeing his updates on twitter, then this morning his arrest in the Indian city of Ajmer unravelled live on the internet.

Apparently the anti-terrorist police were tracking the satellite phone signal as Andy travelled from Pakistan to India and he was eventually picked up early this morning. This was despite the obvious profile he has been enjoying in India with a photo of him and the truck on the front page of The Times of India yesterday.

It’s a rather cautionary tale and calls into question the insouciance with which many expeditions use satellite communications. We hope Andy will come through this hiccup with another story to tell and more publicity for his expedition, but permissions for carrying this kind of equipment might have to make it into your next expedition plans.

Saw the latest episode of Kill It, Cook It, Eat It on BBC3 yesterday evening and was very, very impressed. The programme exemplified a lot of the methodology that we use in the Digital Explorer expeditions and also gave me some ideas about how to improve for the next one.

The premise of the series is to create a connection between the meat that we eat and the process of rearing and killing animals, especially in processed forms such as burgers, sausages, etc. The importance of making empathetic connections is ever more urgent. Young people need to learn about the impact of their choices, especially when they are not immediately obvious. It would be great to take every secondary pupil to an abattoir or an industrial chicken farm, so that they could see the process with their own eyes. This probably won’t happen, but at least now we have a virtual trip that can be used in classrooms via the iplayer for weeks / years (?) to come (please BBC keep it up there).

So what can we learn as educators looking to make video for the classroom?

Feature pupil voice… a lot
This seems pretty obvious and is easy to do with your class. For me some of the best bits last night were characters like Phoebe or Luke speaking straight to camera on location about their experiences. These vox pop were sprinkled with cutaways of what they were talking about – castrating piglets has to be seen to be believed.

Keep it chunky
The programme was nicely segmented with very focused sections on different tasks. So we would have 5 minutes on piglet castration and discussion, 5 minutes of pig slaughter at the abattoir, and another 5 on all the wonderful ingredients that make a value sausage. Having short chunks of film makes it easier to use in the classroom, rather than a straight 30 minute episode.

Make it emotional
If you are looking to spark discussion or interest, emotional engagement really helps to promote empathy. The nature of this topic makes it quite easy, as does the inner working of the slaughterhouse, but there are also some nice experiential exercises. Three of the volunteers involved are weighed to see how big their pen would be if they were piglets. They are then made to crawl around a pen that size for 3 minutes. I can see this kind of exercise being copied in the classroom and being very effective.

Characters drive the story
The young people are well chosen and introduced as individuals with a back story as well. I think that this is something that we can develop more on Digital Explorer expeditions. It would be easier to do with a smaller group. The group size of six used in the programme works really well. If you are making films with a class some of the pupils will be better in front of camera, some will be better at shooting video and some better at directing. Use this diversity of talent.

Overall, well done to BBC3. A nice piece of educational film, all that’s needed now is to have it properly packaged and distributed to schools.