West Tisbury School
Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts
Fifth grade students "explore" the settlement of the New World. Through research, mapping, dramatic presentations and information technology, students demonstrate their knowledge of the explorers and the indigenous peoples they encountered while exploring. Explore our students' findings with us.
We are pleased to be part of "Google Historical Voyages and Events," as we learn about other schools and the historical projects they are doing. It is interesting to see what other students and teachers, around the World, are doing as they study historical events.
5th Grade Explores Explorers
Read our reports and try out our Explorers' Routes on the NEW Google Earth WEB (It is almost as good as being there!)
To use the NEW version of Google Earth, click on the link we supply. The link launches the projects in the new browser version.
Or, try out our Explorers' Routes on Google Earth PRO, which means you have to install the PRO version on a computer. We supply a link for you to download Google Earth Pro.
The easiest way to view our projects is to use # 1 above.
We worked with the art teachers and drew our own explorers. We put the finished images in the projects.
Lesson Overview: Essential questions, Lesson Outcomes, Activities, Assessments. Resources and Materials
You will need a browser to view our converted projects in the NEW Google Earth WEB version. Just click the explorer's name/picture, and your browser will launch Google Earth WEB.
You will need to have Google Earth PRO installed on your computer to view the KMZ versions. Download the KMZ's and open in Pro.
Essential Questions • Assessment: Rubric for Reports, Maps, Posters, Webpages
What Students Will Know • Opportunities For Differentiated Learning
What Students Will Be Able To Do • Resources And Materials
Activities
How To View The Google Earth Tours The Students Did:
1) Click on the pictures of the explorers below to go to each student's webpage.
2) First, you will see a written summary
3) Then, scroll down the page and click on the link to have the student's project/tour play in Google Earth WEB.
Google Earth will open in your browser. Click "Present" to play the tour, or click on each placemarker in the sidebar:
If you click, "Present," use the "Table of Contents" at the bottom to go through the tour.
If you don't click "Present," you will see all the placemarkers listed in the left sidebar
As you click on each placemarker, an information window will open on the right
Information windows can have text, images, videos, and links to resources
Google Docs Written By Students And Published
There are different ways to publish student projects. Using Google Docs is an easy way to publish your students' writing.
They can do their research and write their summaries in a Doc. They can add images, hyperlinks, etc., and their documents can be published on a webpage.
Students on this webpage created Google Earth projects, but they also wrote descriptions of their explorers using Google Docs. They worked with the art teacher and drew pictures of the explorers they were studying. The pictures were scanned and imported into the documents. The Docs can be shared as "view only" and linked to webpages. Or, they can be "published" as a webpage from within Google Docs. When they are published, any changes made to the original document can also be updated automatically without having to re-publish the Doc. The URL's for the "view only" Docs or the "published" Docs can be used on websites made by the teachers, for visitors to the website, to access.
The examples below are from the actual projects the students did above. They wrote their descriptions on Docs, included their sources, scanned their drawings of the explorers, imported them into the Docs, then did their projects in Google Earth. If you prefer to do projects using only essays and Docs, see the links below for ideas.
Please note: Below is a mix of "published" Docs and "view only" Docs so you can see how they open in your browser.
You can use either method. It's useful to note that Docs can also be published as "stand alone" webpages, which are useful for educators if they do not have class websites.