"Storytelling has long been a powerful way to educate, connect, and inspire learners around the world. Stories shed light on shared experiences, values, and history that unite all people; they also have the ability to forge pathways for adopting new ideas and perspectives. Stories can help us understand information on both a psychological and emotional level. Google Earth helps visualize place-based stories in 3D and allows you to add rich geospatial context to your own Earth projects.

Google Earth's Voyager is a showcase of interactive guided tours, quizzes, and layers that aim to help educate everyone about the world, locations near and far. By clicking the ship's wheel icon on Google Earth, you’ll circumnavigate the globe with the Hōkūleʻa using stars, track hurricanes and tropical storms in real time, and find place-based stories authored by partners such as National Geographic and HHMI Biointeractive. Voyager’s curated stories weave in rich media, such as 360 videos and Street View, allowing us to learn about Earth from a new perspective." ~Google Earth

"Uncover hidden gems the world over with “I’m feeling lucky,” a new feature that takes you somewhere unexpected with the click of a button. You might discover the lush green Pemba Island off the Swahili coast, the historic La Scala opera house in Milan, Italy or the Zao Hot Spring in Yamagata, Japan. We’ve curated 20,000 different places, so roll the dice and see where the world takes you.

Once you’ve landed on a point of interest, open a Knowledge Card to learn history and facts about that place and see more pictures of it. To add a dash of serendipity to your travels, flip through the stack of cards and discover related places. You might find yourself in Valencia, Spain and stumble on the beautiful Ciudad de las Artes y Las Ciencias."

~Google Blog

"Google Earth creation tools allow you to author, collaborate, and share digital stories mapped across the canvas of the planet. Placemarks, lines, and shapes will serve as foundational story elements, similar to Voyager stories. The projects will come to life as you add photos and videos from your Google Drive folder and use the rich text editor to add narrative. To enhance the storytelling and visualizations, you can transform your project with customized icons and manipulate viewpoints in Street View mode and 3D." ~Google Earth 

"Google added over 500,000 images to Google Maps...taken by spacecraft, many of which were taken by Cassini, which was launched in space 20 years ago.

All those photos were put together to reconstruct a number of planets and moons, turning them into models of sorts that you can visit using Google Maps. Just like Street View on Earth, you can explore each location and zoom in on particular points of interest—such as the icy plains of Enceladus—to get a better look." 

~Lifehacker

"Augmented reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) bridge the digital and physical worlds. They allow you to take in information and content visually, in the same way you take in the world. AR dramatically expands the ways our devices can help with everyday activities like searching for information, shopping, and expressing yourself. VR lets you experience what it's like to go anywhere — from the front row of a concert to distant planets in outer space.

~Google Geo AR/VR