Virtual and real-world field trips: Using Google Maps and Google Earth
Google Maps and Google Earth are interactive mapping applications that can be used to virtually navigate the world, allowing you to view roads, buildings, satellite images, and geographic features. Faculty and students can add their own materials (e.g., photographs and notes) to collaboratively create interactive maps. In addition, there are tools to chart routes, measure distances, and measure areas. Google Maps and Google Earth can be used in a wide variety of educational contexts, including geography, sociology, history, literature, biology, anthropology, and the health sciences.
In this session, three Hunter faculty members discussed their experiences using Google Maps and Google Earth:
- Dana Fenton (Sociology) talked about her assignment, "The Upper East Side is no place to raise children... Or is it?" To explore this question, students collect data from the neighborhood, including photographs and interviews, and then add the data to a shared map.
- Thomas McGovern (Anthropology) talked about how students use GPS devices to map findings from anthropological fieldwork.
- Randye Rutberg (Geography) discussed how she used Google Earth to create "virtual field trips" to sites of geological significance.