Google Earth

GOOGLE EARTH  and the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill

The oil spill on the Gulf of Mexico is a tragic event that will have long-lasting effects on our environment and economy.  Below is a link to see a time lapse interactive map of the oil spill as it has progressed from April 22, 2010, until today. (Press PLAY in the upper left corner.)

 http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/05/01/us/20100501-oil-spill-tracker.html?ref=us

 I think this is a really great tool to use with our students.  You can have them make predictions in regard to direction and size of the spill.  Use the measurement tools in SMART notebook software to analyze the growth of the contamination.

Below is a link to a second map (The Gulf Coast Oil Spill Map).

It was developed by Google engineer Paul Rademacher. The map uses the Google Earth Browser Plugin and allows you to compare the size of the oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico with the size of cities or towns.  What a wonderful instructional tool.  This can quickly become a Science, Social Science, or Math lesson very easily for a wide variety of grade levels.
 http://paulrademacher.com/oilspill/ 


Google Earth is an amazing instructional tool for so many reasons. If you are not an avid user, I suggest that you give it a try.  You can download the software for FREE from here http://earth.google.com/download-earth.html .  It has endless possibilities - not just finding your house!
 
http://www.google.com/educators/p_earth.html is a link to an overview of the Google Earth software and a list of ways to incorporate this software into your curriculum.  It even has a SKY view for the astronomy lover in you.