Language Arts

Houghton Mifflin 4th Grade Reading Connections

• Theme 1  Journeys:   Record destinations traveled to in the story and watch Google Earth map it.
  
• Theme 2  American Stories:  Find where they take place in America,  what does the geography of the land have to do with the story?
  
• Theme 5   Heroes: Where is the hero from, why are they famous? Find where they are from and zoom in on them. Where did their travels take them in life.  Use placemarks to track it.
  
• Theme 6   Nature, Friend or Foe:  Track hurricanes, volcanoes any wild weather
  

Houghton Mifflin 3rd Grade Reading Connections — GE placemarks designed to use along side HM to enhance instruction and integrate geography into our teaching! Use the placemarks and questions to start discussions with your class about these different locations and cultures. A special thanks to Jamie Baynes from Yolanda Elementary for creating these placemarks!

Houghton Mifflin 5th Grade Reading Connections

• Theme 1  Natures Fury:   Track hurricanes, volcanoes any wild weather find where the stories in the book take place.
  
• Theme 3 Voices of the Revolution:  Use the social studies KMZ files for place marks already created  (see below)
  
• Theme 5  One Land Many Trails: Use the social studies KMZ files for place marks already created  (see below) of the Oregon Trail.  Compare what the areas look like today vs long ago.
  
• Theme 6  Animal Encounters:  Locate where the animals are from and find their habitat on Google Earth.  Use the KMZ file below that relates to conservation.

Writing Ideas

• Record observations and "I wonder" questions for any region or area you are studying
  
• Use Venn diagrams to compare and contrast, use observations to write descriptive paragraphs
  
• Students can write a narrative story and add placemarks to show where their story takes place.
• Plot a summer trip and download pictures from the trip with a short description of the stops

Elementary Literature

• Meerkat Mail — A fun way to integrate literature using the book Meerkat Mail by Emily Gravett .  The lesson has a nice outline and could be used with many books.

Secondary Literature

• Google Lit Trips: this site maps contains a collection of literature-based Google Earth files.  Most are for older kids.  However, it is being updated often.  You class could create a lit trip.
  • Lit Trips: An Interview with Jerome Burg (click to open in new window or to download)

Other

• Article: Students can create placemarks of where they live and attach a written description (NOTE: DO NOT post these types of assignments on the internet or school server)
  
• Lesson Plan: This simple lesson uses Layers to ask questions
  
• Miscellaneous Google Earth Files — Includes a travel guide, world wide panoramas, and two American Revolution files
  
• World’s Tallest Skyscrapers (make sure you have the buildings layer turned on when viewing this information)
• Google Earth Wiki (shared community) — this site is for teachers to share resources and and ideas for Google Earth.  It has a lot of useful information and lesson ideas.
• Article: See the World with Google's Mapping Program
• Teacher and Lesson Sites (PDF file)

Social Studies

Elementary Geography Ideas

• Land Forms: Write about, locate, and create placemarks about landforms
  
• State research: create placemarks of important landmarks in a state, write why it is important include the history of the landmark. Students can present their findings using Google Earth. State Capitols Placemarks (KMZ file)
• World Geography: compare and contrast where we live to other regions in the world
• Volcanoes: use the volcano layer to locate volcanoes throughout the world.  Where are they located? Which country has the most? Why?  Which volcanoes are active?
• Explore Your Earth (Scholastic): this cross-curricular language arts, geography, and science site focuses on local and worldwide environmental issues. 
  

Elementary Files

• Iditarod#1 and Iditarod #2: connections to many content areas, including research writing, biography project, math, map design and art.
• Oregon Trail — a web quest that uses Google Earth to map the Oregon Trail
• Lewis and Clark Google Earth Resources and and other files (KMZ/KML files)
  
• Article: Using the Compass Rose and Map Reading
• Various Google Earth Resources (KMZ/KML files)

Secondary Files

• The Seven Wonders of the World — Have students present a "wonder" and have the class create Venn diagrams comparing and contrasting the various locations.
• Crisis in Darfur web site, handout, and KMZ file
• F3D Charts of World Oil Consumption by Country and World Oil Consumption Per Capita by Country

Math and Science

Ideas

• Use the direction mode put a From address and a To address. The route will be traced and a distance given. 
  • Students could find out how many miles they traveled during the summer, or figure out how far they live from school.  After collecting the data the whole class could figure out the mean, median, mode and range of the collected data.  
• Find the difference of miles, temperature, and elevation from one location to another
• Use Google Earth to model the earth’s rotation and tilt instead of the globe and flashlight trick
  
• Connect Google Earth with the Foss Landforms Science Kit
  
• Glaciers and More: The U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) has a wonderful library of Google Earth enabled content for you to use as you examine topics such as Glaciers, Sea Ice, Permafrost and Antarctica
  
• More Glacial Features: zoom in on Denali (Alaska, USA) and point out a number of glacial features including pyramidal peaks, arêtes, etc.
  
• Earth Tools: find elevation, sunrise, and sunset times; connections with mathematical concepts of time and calculations.
  
• Daylight Map: helps you map daylight and clouds

Files

• Centennial Elementary's Community Walk
• Riverbend Elementary's Community Walk
• Skate Park In My Backyard?
• Endangered But Not Extinct
• USGS Earthquake Data (last 7 days)
• EPA Superfund/CERCLA sites
• Avian Flu