Google+Earth+Projects

The goal of the Google Earth Play Project is for students to be able to share important landmarks in their communities and learn about places important to other students around the globe. Students will each choose a landmark to share and, in collaboration with their families, take photos of the place and gather any other information they would like to include. They will locate their chosen place on a Google Map and create a placemark to share their information. The map will be shared with all participants, who will be able to view in Google Maps or export to Google Earth (which is a more robust environment, but is static and will have to be re-downloaded as changes are made).
 * Google Earth Play Project Classroom Project**

To ensure privacy, students will post information without their names attached. Teachers can choose to have their students work on individual placemarks or team up in some way. The description above is a guideline, but there is plenty of room for teachers to modify their participation. Marking field trip destinations was one suggestion that would allow class participation, and not require as much parent involvement.The main objective is for students to see a variety of places around the globe that are important to other children their age.

[|Screencast describing how to create placemarks for the Classroom Project] media type="custom" key="12902072"

Google Earth Project Parent Letter

[|Screencast describing how to create a customized placemark] media type="custom" key="11567690"

[|Screencast showing how to export placemarks to Google Earth] media type="custom" key="11567714"

The first collaborative project we worked on was a map that located the schools of each participant. The challenge for each teacher was to create a placemark with a current picture of the participant, along with a picture of him or her around kindergarten age. Of course participants can customize their placemarks as they see fit.
 * Google Earth Play Project Teacher Project** (to get a sense of how to make placemarks/share maps)

[|The shared Google Map]