For today's exercise you will be working in Google Earth and Sketchup. Both are available as free downloads, and you must install them on your computer:
Download Sketchup (Sketchup is free, you have to pay for Sketchup Pro)
There are Pro versions of both Google Earth and Sketchup, and if you work for a nonprofit or educational organization you can apply for a grant to get them for free:
Apply for a Google Earth Pro and Sketchup Pro Grant
We will be using various Google tools (Spreadsheets, Fusion Tables, Picasaweb albums, etc.) which require you to have a Google Account:
These Google tools will work much better on Firefox or Chrome- as a general rule, Safari and Explorer do not support modern applications:
There are many resources available to help you learn Google Earth and Sketchup, for example:
Sketchup Tutorials (you don't have to pay for the basic Sketchup)
And there are many examples of maps, tours, and models that you can find online:
Google Earth Pro can be used to import GIS shp files (you can also export from ArcMap as a kml file for use in Google Earth):
Importing Geographic Information Systems (GIS) data in Google Earth
This lesson was developed in collaboration with Dr. Kathleen Nuckolls and Ron Hall