Google Earth

http://earth.google.com
Google Earth is a new satellite-based mapping product.  It’s a standalone program that lets you sort of “fly” in from space into street level views.
The software is free to download and has the following features (from the press release):

  • 3D buildings in major cities across the United States
  • 3D terrain showing mountains, valleys, and canyons around the world
  • Integrated Google Local search to find local information such as hotels, restaurants, schools, parks, and transportation
  • Fast, dynamic navigation
  • Video playback of driving directions
  • Tilt, rotate, and activate 3D terrain and buildings for a different perspective on a location
  • Easy creation and sharing of annotations among users
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They have two other “subscription” upgrades, Google Earth Plus ($20) and Google Earth Pro ($400) that include a number of extra features. With the “Plus” you can plug in a GPS device, print in high resolution, and generally interact in more ways with the software such as importing stuff into it. “Google Earth Pro” is for research and industry types.
Images and Dates
Not all cities are covered in high resolution (where you can see individual buildings and cars) detail.  There is  more imagery of the United States than other countries currently. And because the imagery comes from a variety of sources, and is mosaic-ed together, it is difficult for us to specify the date of a city or region (a single city may have imagery taken from different months).
Google is adding high resolution coverage continually. The best way to find out if your area of interest is covered is to download the free version of Google Earth and check it out for yourself (Google Earth, Google Earth Plus, and Google Earth Pro share access to the same database).

Google Earth Resources

1. How to get Google Earth
http://earth.google.com

2. Google Earth for Educators
http://www.google.com/educators/p_earth.html
This is Google’s website for educators.  They keep it fresh and up-to-date with links for other sites and educator resources.

3. Google Community
http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/ubbthreads.php/Cat/0
there’s a whole community out there sharing their knowledge of GE.  In addition, they’re creating overlays that you can download and view within the application on your computer. 

4. Google Earth Blog
http://www.gearthblog.com/
There’s probably more than one blog out there dedicated to Google Earth but this is one of the better ones.

5. Jane Goodall's Gombe Chimpazee Blog
http://gombechimpanzee.blogspot.com/
Take a look at how the people at The Jane Goodall Institute are using GE.

6. Google Earth Lessons
http://www.gelessons.com/
GELessons.com - A Free Public Resource - Providing Teachers with the tools needed to enhance their instruction using Google Earth®, the free program that brings the world to the classroom! A Website By and For Teachers.

7. Juicy Geography
http://www.juicygeography.co.uk/googleearth.htm

8. Digital Geography
http://www.digitalgeography.co.uk/

9. Free Tools for Google Earth
http://www.sgrillo.net/googleearth/
Ricardo Sgrillo - a Brazillian programer and engineer developed these great tools that allow you to create graphs and paths and then overlay them into Google Earth.

Two Great Web Sites for Gathering Data
10.U.S. Census Bureau’s International Database
http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idbacc.html
This is the international database from the U.S. Census Bureau.  It’s great for gathering and analyzing health and general census data from around the world.  Take a look at infant mortality and life expectancy data from 2 neighboring countries.

11. BestPlaces.Net
http://www.bestplaces.net
Want to compare Woodstock, VT with any other city or town in the US.  This website collates data from dozens of different sources from the U.S. Census to the State Association of Realtors to Major League Baseball.  You could easily spend hours here.

Check out some of our KML files created by students in Mr. Bango's 8th grade computer skills II class.
life expectancy in South Africa
water quality in selected cities in the US
population in Vermont by counties.