Google Earth 6 – Trees and more!

Many of you know how much I love Google Earth, so I’ve been trying to find an hour to play since the release of Google Earth 6 earlier this week. It might take me more than an hour. I’m having too much fun. So what’s new?

Trees! Lots and lots of trees. Trees have been modeled and added to a selection of public parks in major cities and in some special ecologically interesting areas. Make sure you’ve turned on Layers –> 3D –> Trees, then search for these locations in Google Earth and explore the trees:

• Kahigaini, Kenya
• Golden Gate Park, San Francisco

You’ll start to see the trees as you zoom in to street level. As you zoom, your view should automatically tilt and the trees should start to appear.  If they don’t, just grab the little Google Earth PegMan (on the right in with the navigation sliders) and drag him on to the earth. You’ll be zoomed in to the earth and be standing beneath the canopy of trees.

Google Earth & Climate Change

This video shows some wonderful examples of how Google Earth is being used to highlight climate change issues at the COP16 conference.

The full length videos referenced in this video can be found at Climate Change in Google Earth. That page also links to tutorials to help you (and your students!) create your own tours in Google Earth. How much more interesting these are than bullet points on a slideshow!

And for more resources on using Google Earth in the classroom, visit my Google Earth class resource page.

Off to explore what else is new in Google Earth 6.

p.s. No, I don’t work for Google Earth! But it sure would be fun.