Dear fellow GE enthusiasts,

The more I use Google Earth, the more excited I become about its incredible cross-disciplinary potential as an educational tool. I am confident that it could become an indispensable fixture in every high school and university, and rekindle in students, the joy of learning, discovery, and experimentation.

I realize that this sounds like an incredibly grand vision, so I have collected and organized my thoughts in the following dissertation, below.

I wish I had the programming skills to build this myself, but for now, all I can do is visualize and propose.

I look forward to your comments!


--- Bob Yewchuk

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"If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants" --- Isaac Newton


Background

As individuals, we will never perceive our world completely and accurately, because it is composed of a countless number of layers. What we actually see is our own personal world, made up of the layers with which we are familiar. Together, these make up our own "active environment". We may look at the same things, but we see only a few of the layers - our own.

Picture a map of Alaska. What do you see?

* A geography teacher might see the largest state in the union, based on land area
* A geologist might visualize the permafrost border, slowly migrating northward from the effects of global warming
* David Suzuki might see a fragile ecosystem
* George W. Bush will likely see vast, unexploited oil reserves

Every one of us lives in our own world; a world created through our interests and life experiences. This is not a good or bad thing; it's merely the way we perceive. This proposal for Google Earth will open our eyes, and show us the other layers. We will then understand the richness of the world in which we live.

My solution --- "Google Earth: Academic Edition". This application will be virtually identical to the existing Google Earth, with two notable differences: one new world view (standard maps), and a variety of additional data layers.


Google Earth: Academic Edition - An Analysis

It is composed of three distinct parts - the world views, the basic layers, and some additional data layers, which I'll call "educational layers".

World Views: There would be two views of the world - a standard map view and the satellite image view (just like Google Maps). I hope you won't think it blasphemous of me to suggest that the user can turn off photographic images, but some data layers can be better represented against a plain map background.

Basic Layers: These are the same layers offered presently in Google Earth: Political boundaries (country, state, county); Cities, Towns; Highways, Toads; Railroads; Airports etc.


The Educational Layers

And now, the magic begins! This is the essence and potential of Google Earth: Academic Edition - a new set of data layers. I'll talk about the details (how the data is displayed, how to acquire the data etc.) further down in this e-mail. Right now, let's take a look at the mind-boggling, cross-disciplinary potential of this new Google Earth, and what it can offer to students and educators. Here's just a sample (in no particular order) of the educational layers that can be superimposed on either a plain map or satellite image map:

* The annual migration path of the Monarch butterfly
* The spread of the zebra mussels in the Great Lakes
* The extent of the British Empire
* The umbral path of the next solar eclipse
* Countries that have signed on to various international treaties
* The amount of tropical rainforest left in the world
* Locations of diamond mines
* Average number of children, per family, in countries around the world
* Major languages, and where they are spoken in the world
* Recent major earthquakes around the world
* Estimated world oil reserves, and locations of producing wells
* Pollution levels, CO2 emission levels
* Interest and inflation rates, by country
* The Democratic and Republican states in the U.S.
* Government types around the world (democracies, dictatorships, communist countries etc.)
* Birth, fertility, and mortality rates in each country
* AIDS cases around the world
* Life expectancy in various countries
* Locations of active volcanoes around the world
* Amount of usable agricultural land in the US
* Charting the hole in the ozone layer
* Average adult height of men and women, by country
* Locations of military bases, nuclear silos, nuclear waste storage areas
* Meteorite impact locations
...

I could go on for pages, but I'm sure you get the idea. Almost anything you can imagine, can be displayed using Google Earth (given the proper data of course). As you can see, every educational discipline can be represented in a customized layer, and can be brought to life!

Unlike textbooks, which start becoming out-of-date as soon as they're printed, Google Earth will always have the most recently available data for students. They'll be able to look at their world through a window, instead of a time machine.

A geography teacher could launch Google Earth, gaze upon the globe in space, and see "Gaia". S/he could then, by turning on various data layers, see that it is distressed, or at the very least, not in a state of equilibrium. The students could discuss what exactly has pushed it out of equilibrium, and what we can do to make our existence with Nature harmonious once again.


Historical Data: Adding A Dimension

As exciting as this is, I see the custom layer data as merely a starting point. The usefulness of Google Earth can be increased further by adding historical data, and viewing this data through time. This, in my opinion, will make a much bigger impact on students. Imagine the look on students' faces as they watch an animation of the slowly dwindling amount of tropical rainforest. The animation would be powered by actual data, forcing students to confront a frightening reality. There are countless ways to utilize historical data; here are just two examples:

* Large time scale: An animation of Pangaea, slowly separating into the continents, and drifting into their current positions.

* Medium time scale: An animation of the last ice age, illustrating how the land was reshaped once the ice receded

* Smaller time scale: tracking the movements of glaciers; the growth and decline of various political empires.

With each passing year, more data will be acquired and added, making Google Earth will increasingly useful and meaningful to students, teachers, professors, and even researchers.


Selling The Layers

Here where I live, in Canada, our local cable company offers a plethora of channels. They sell them to subscribers in packages, based on a viewer's interest. There is a Sports Package, a Movie Package, a News Package etc. Each package includes a number of similarly-themed channels.

The educational layers could also be marketed to schools in this way. In addition to an annual license for the use of Google Earth, schools could subscribe to "packages" of data layers, based on their interests or specializations. For example, a medical layer could include the following:

* The spread of AIDS, from 1981 - present
* Hospital locations in the United States
* Number of doctors, per 100,000 population, by state
* The cost of malpractice insurance, by state
* Locations of recent flu (or other) epidemics
* The spread of the West Nile virus
...

Google Earth could also offer: an environmental package, a political package, an astronomy package, a geology package etc.

The inclusion of historical data has an added benefit: an additional, repeating revenue stream. Naturally, Google can promote each year's new data in much the same way that manufacturers promote their latest products. The best research (and trend-spotting) can be conducted only with the very latest data!


Displaying The Data

Depending on the nature of the layer data, it can be displayed in a number of ways:

* Points (meteorite impact locations)
* Symbols / Corporate Logos (Wal-Mart locations across North America)
* Lines (the migration path of the Monarch butterfly, territorial water boundaries of coastal countries)
* Shaded areas (usable agricultural land in the United States)
* A Shaded Continuum (ocean / sea / lake depths around the world)
* Filled Polygons (Democratic or Republican states)
* 3D columns (infant mortality rates around the world)


Acquiring The Data

I envision Google forming partnerships with various educational institutions and government organizations in order to acquire this data.

In the future, there may even be corporate affiliations. For example, McDonalds could supply the locations of every one of their American restaurants. While this may not appear particularly useful in an educational setting, this data layer could be superimposed onto one that displays the incidence of heart disease, state by state. (I realize that this comparison, by itself, is "inviting an inference", and is decidedly poor science - this example is used merely to illustrate a use for Google Earth involving the juxtaposition of disparate types of data).


The Classroom Community

As you know, there is a layer called "Keyhole Community BBS", which allows users to add their own placemarks and attach comments to them. I would like to propose something similar for Google Earth: Academic Edition, called Classroom Community. This is a similar layer for user comments and placemarks, for each class in a school, or in a grade. The teachers (through an administrative account) would be able to create these layers for each class, as needed.

Once activated, each class could add placemarks and maintain a growing collection of comments. Teachers would have the ability to lock out the layers created by other classes, so that the students aren't tempted to cheat.


Future Enhancements

The following ideas will involve a little more programming to implement. Therefore, please feel free to ignore this section for now. They can be revisited later, for a future version of Google Earth.

Idea #1: Interactivity - activate a political boundary layer. Click on a country, and watch as all of that country's allies (i.e. those with which it maintains diplomatic relations) are highlighted in one colour, and its enemies in another colour.

Idea #2: Deltas - view the rate of change over time. Is global warming leveling off, or getting worse? Even viewing historical data will require some additional calculations. Plotting the rate of change can give students a quicker evaluation of the state of our environment.

Idea #3: Calculated Fields - activate the world population layer, and the usable agricultural land layer. Determine, year by year, how much agricultural land is available to each person in the world, and how that amount is changing over time. This particular example will be more effective if it is used in conjunction with the Ecological Footprint website: http://www.earthday.net/footprint/index.asp

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