The Old Schoolhouse - March 2012

Learn how you can use this powerful free tool to explore shipwrecks, follow
weather patterns in real time, watch wild animals in Africa, explore ancient
Rome, and ;y over your neighborhood in a jet aircra;.

realism or go for a ;at single color for better performance.

•;Ocean: Traditional atlases treat oceans as empty space, but Google Earth gives you many options for exploring the oceans. Turn on the Shipwrecks button to see the locations and stories behind many shipwrecks. Ocean Expeditions takes you on a tour of several interesting expeditions. For example, one expedition that starts in Guam takes you on a tour of undersea volcanoes, some with videos! Animal tracking lets you select an animal such as a shark or a whale and see in ;rst-person view where that animal has been swimming!

•;Weather: ;e Weather tab is equally fascinating. Turn on Clouds to see major cloud formations in close to real time. You can also view radar data and view current temperature and conditions anywhere in the world.

•;Gallery: ;is menu features some exceptional content. Especially noteworthy is the Ancient Rome 3D Gallery, which allows you to see what Rome looked like. National Geographic has provided several interesting options, but our favorite is the live WildCams. ;is feature allows you to view live webcams of animal habitats all over the world. Once we watched elephants come to a watering hole in Botswana while we ate our breakfast. NASA has some very nice imagery, and Wikiloc shows interesting trails. Note that content comes from a wide variety of sources, so as always, you should monitor your kids as they use this content.

•;More: If you’re not overwhelmed yet, there are even more layers available in the (cleverly named) More section. Among the most interesting options here are Places/Categories, which allows you to place a marker on co;ee shops and ATMs, and the Transportation section, which allows you to mark airports and rail lines.

Changing Space and Time
A program as comprehensive as Google
Earth isn’t limited by silly things like
space and time. ;ere are many ways to
www.; eHomeschoolMagazine.com
modify when and where you’re looking.
For example, you can choose Histori-
cal Imagery from the View menu to get
a slider to pick a time span. For some
parts of the earth, you’ll see aerial pho-
tos for the last ;;een years or so. In a
few places (like Rome) you can go back
thousands of years.

I Believe I Can Fly

One of my favorite features of Google Earth is a built-in ;ight simulator! Navigate to any location on the planet and choose Enter Flight Simulator from the Tools menu. You’ll be given a choice between two aircra;: a jet ;ghter and a more manageable prop plane. If you’re a

National Geographic has provided several interesting options, including articles and live webcams of animal habitats all over the world.

more celestial adventures, go to the Explore menu under the View menu. You can explore the sky, the moon, and Mars! Sky View gives you a view of the constellations. You can zoom in on a particular area of space for much more detail. ;e images are absolutely astounding.

Sky has its own set of layers, which allows you to turn on constellations within the solar system. ;e Welcome to Sky tour is worth doing if you have any interest in astronomy.

beginner, you’ll have better luck with the slower plane.

Before you get started, click on the Help button that comes with the ;ight simulator pop-up window. ;is describes the keyboard commands you’ll use to control the plane. When the ;ight simulation begins, you’ll see a heads-up display that indicates the aircra;’s speed and direction. You can use a joystick or keyboard to ;y the plane, but I think the mouse control is probably the easiest.