This is so cool! The hippo picture above is a screen shot from Google Earth. Turn on the National Geogaphic magazine layer (one of the items listed under "featured content") and you will see several icons of cameras and airplanes. Click on the icons to view close-up images that are included as part of National Geographic's Africa and Australia Mega fly-over project. Other close up images that I have viewed include camels, elephants, and birds.
There are over 500 different Megaflyover photographs available. They were selected by Mike Fay from his library of almost 92,000 images, taken from a small plane flying at low altitude.
An fabulous lesson plan to go along with this is listed on National Geographic Xpeditions. In this lesson, students imagine that they are going to travel along with National Geographic conservation fellow Michael Fay. They think about questions they'd like to answer regarding human-nature interactions, and list the equipment they would take to study one of these questions.
This looks like a site that I should explore more. Have you seen any direct curriculum links for Google Earth?
ReplyDeleteYes, you'll enjoy spending some time exploring Google Earth. Check out the MDE lesson at http://techplan.edzone.net/ci2006/VirtualTour.doc. Students begin by finding key locations in Michigan using Google Earth. Teacher instructions, student handouts, and video tutorial resources are listed! Using this lesson is a great way to expose teachers and students to Google Earth.
ReplyDeleteMany other ideas are listed at http://www.gelessons.com/.
Enjoy!
I have never seen this before and will spend more time tomorrow
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