Google Earth
You can download Google Earth free here: http://www.google.com/earth/download/ge/agree.html
This is how the screen will look when you open up Google Earth app or plugin.
Perform searches from the search box at the top left side of the program.
You can type a place name, zipcode or postcode, a town/city name, an airport or you can even try to type in a latitude-longitude location (in decimal format). Once you press the ↵ Enter key, you'll be "flown" to that destination. You can take a virtual holiday!
You can also drag the little yellow man icon to the map and you will get to see street view. I do this before I visit a place so that I can navigate the place easily when I am there!
Look for the date the picture was taken from the bottom corner of the screen.
Scroll through the dates to see all the satellite images from different days of the year.
Zoom to a place on the map where the satellite image has a date, click the "View" menu from the menu bar and click the "Historical Imagery" button to enable the feature. On the desktop version you can also click the icon on the bottom left to bring up the time slider.
Drag the location of the toggle slider switch in the top left corner to a different date and see what the area was like. e.g. you can see how the Serangoon River mouth was like before the dam was built in 2010 in 2005, 2008 and 2010.
You can view the efforts to ensure that the water in Serangoon Reservoir is clean via the kmz file below,
You can then open up the project and import the file from download. Click on each of the placemark to find out more.
More on using Google Earth in GI
Click on the link below to see how deforestation affects the Xingu tribe in Amazon.
tinyurl.com/deforestationxingu
Click on the attached file below 'Forest' and then click on the pie charts in the various countries and find out which countries experience high rate of deforestation.
How much forest cover has Singapore lost?
You can also open up the file "water" attached to look at the countries which are facing water shortages.
Introduction of a game "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?" using Google Earth shared by freetech4teachers Great for EL and Geog!
To play Where on Google Earth is Carmen Sandiego? simply go to g.co/carmensandiego and start "interviewing" witness
es by clicking on the magnifying glass.
When you click on an interviewee Google Earth will automatically zoom-in on the location of the interview. Just like in any other use of Google Earth, you can zoom and pan around the area of detail.
Great for learning about places around the world!
After talking to the witnesses, use the information to make your best guess as to where you should fly to next from a given list to pursue Carmen Sandiego.
Update:
Carmen Sandiego is back!
Another game to help Carmen Sandiego recover Tutankhamun’s Mask. Le Chevre, a master climber and her classmate of at VILE Academy, has stolen the priceless artifact.
Third and latest addition.
After you helped Carmen Sandiego recover the stolen Crown Jewels of England and Tutankhamun’s Mask. Now we need you for a third and final assignment: Recover the Keys to the Kremlin in Google Earth.