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The Pennsylvania State University Schreyer Honors College THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY SCHREYER HONORS COLLEGE INTERCOLLEGE PROGRAM MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE: CREATING AN OCEANOGRAPHIC GOOGLE EARTH TOUR USING SPREADSHEET MAPPER JONATHAN D. HARTLINE Spring 2011 A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a baccalaureate degree in Information Sciences and Technology with honors in Environmental Inquiry Reviewed and approved* by the following: Laura Guertin Associate Professor of Earth Science Thesis Supervisor and Honors Adviser Nannette D’Imperio Instructor in Computer Science Thesis Reader * Signatures are on file in the Schreyer Honors College. i ABSTRACT Google Earth is free, downloadable software offered by Google that allows people to explore the Earth through satellite imagery. In recent years, Google Earth has been used as a technological tool to teach students in the classroom about varying topics from geography to literature. Google Earth Outreach, Google’s program which supports non-profit organizations, has released Spreadsheet Mapper, a Google spreadsheet which can be used to create and compile more complex Google Earth tours. Four of Spreadsheet Mapper’s default templates were modified to suit the needs of a “choose your own adventure” style oceanographic tour which teaches users about surface ocean currents. The tour follows a branched structure in which the user chooses one of four ocean basins to explore: North Atlantic, South Atlantic, North Pacific, and South Pacific. Each basin starts with the scenario of throwing a bottle with a message inside into the ocean and tracing its journey through the four major basin-specific surface ocean currents. At the end of each tour is a video which shows users how the bottle traveled on the ocean currents. After each video, the user is given the option to restart the current tour, go back to select another ocean basin, watch the video again, or end the tour. Additional uses for Google Earth and Spreadsheet Mapper to raise awareness of environmental issues are suggested. Keywords: physical oceanography, Google Earth, Spreadsheet Mapper, KML, environmental inquiry, Choose your own adventure ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT i LIST OF FIGURES iv LIST OF TABLES v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vi Chapter 1: Introduction 1 Classroom Uses 1 Current Out-Of-Class Examples 3 Why Physical Oceanography? 4 Why Choose Your Own Adventure? Education and Google Gaming 4 Chapter 2: A Closer Look at Google Earth and Spreadsheet Mapper 6 Anatomy of Google Earth 6 HTML, Tags, and Google Earth 10 Spreadsheet Mapper and Developing Dynamic KML 11 Customizing Spreadsheet Mapper 14 Chapter 3: Methods 17 Deciding on User Inputs 17 Specific Modifications 20 Creating Content 25 Spreadsheet Mapper Issues 26 Spreadsheet Content 28 Creating the Video 28 Chapter 4: Oceanographic Currents 31 Ocean Currents 31 The Tour 34 North Atlantic Basin 34 South Atlantic Basin 35 North Pacific Basin 35 South Pacific Basin 36 Tour Conclusion 37 Chapter 5: Future Applications in Environmental Inquiry 38 Existing Environmental Layers in Google Earth 38 Mountaintop Removal Mining 38 Endangered Species 39 iii Possible Future Projects in Google Earth 39 Invasive Species 39 Watersheds 40 Rainforest Conservation 40 Conclusion 41 Bibliography 42 Appendix A: KML Output for Spreadsheet Mapper 45 Appendix B: KML Code for Video Tours 210 Academic Vitae 282 iv LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2-1: The basic Google Earth interface 7 Figure 2-2: The Edit Placemark window 9 Figure 2-3: The text that appears in row 13 13 Figure 3-1: Spreadsheet Mapper’s Sample Template 1 19 Figure 3-2: Spreadsheet Mapper’s Sample Template 2 20 Figure 3-3: The start point for one of the Ocean Basins using Template 1 21 Figure 3-4: The start point for one of the Ocean Basins using Template 3 22 Figure 3-5: The start point for one of the Ocean Basins using Template 2 24 Figure 3-6: The number in cell H-10 27 Figure 4-1: The surface currents of the Pacific Ocean 32 Figure 4-2: Ocean surface currents around the globe 33 v LIST OF TABLES Table 2-1: Network Link Attributes 12 Table 2-2: Attributes required for every Spreadsheet Mapper Template 15 vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I have learned a lot about myself over the course of this thesis, none of which would be possible without the following people. I want to thank Dr. Laura Guertin and Nannette D’Imperio for the countless hours of their time spent answering my questions and editing my thesis. Without their suggestions and guidance I would not have stepped out of my comfort zone or accomplished half as much as I have. I thank my family for their endless supply of support and optimism, especially when I had none. Over the course of my college career my father has given me a bed to sleep in, my mother a shoulder to cry on, my brother Justin a model for success, and my brother Douglas a friend to confide in. Without any of these things I could not have succeeded in doing all that I have done and have nothing to show for my years as an Honors Scholar. Last but most certainly not least, I would like to thank Sean Askay from Google for taking the time to answer all of my questions, even the ones I did not ask. Sean has never met me in person, but we have talked to each other over the phone and e-mail to discuss Google Earth and Spreadsheet Mapper on two separate occasions. It is because of his generosity that my final Google Earth file has fulfilled and even surpassed my wildest dreams. 1 Chapter 1 Introduction Google Earth (http://earth.google.com) is free, downloadable software offered by Google in which people can explore the Earth through satellite imagery. Because Google Earth is easily accessible, educators are able to use this tool as a resource to teach students in the classroom. The tool adds a spatial perspective that helps students with geography and has several different possibilities for classroom integration. Many examples exist as to how Google Earth can be used in education, most obviously in geography and Earth science classes. Other school subjects, such as physics (Aguiar & Souza, 2009) and literature (Castiglione & Engelhardt, 2009), use Google Earth for educational purposes. The most common method of navigation within a pre-existing Google Earth file is in a linear fashion. But a Google Earth file can be coded to be as dynamic as a web page, navigating the globe in a more “choose your own adventure” structure. “Choose your own adventure” is a form of literature which has multiple endings (Siddle & Platts, 2009). In a “choose your own adventure” Google Earth tour, it is the person playing the tour who controls which destinations to go to as opposed to following along in a linear fashion. Each choice the user takes will lead the user to a different end outcome. This thesis challenges the standard linear structure of Google Earth tours used in education and presents a nonlinear educational tour on ocean currents through the use of an additional Google tool called Spreadsheet Mapper. Classroom Uses One interesting way to use Google Earth comes from Aguiar and Souza (2009), who describe using the tool with physics classes. Aguiar and Souza (2009) take the photos of Google Earth and look for boats in higher-quality sections of the tool, such as cities close to busy waterways. Google’s pictures improve in quality the closer one gets to cities, which is crucial to Aguiar and Souza’s (2009) student assignment. The boats found on Google Earth can have their acceleration and speed calculated by students by looking at the waves that the boats create. While unconventional, this is a unique pairing between physics and Google Earth. 2 Even Adam and Mowers (2007) find unique ways to use Google Earth as an educational tool for elementary schools, such as learning about the location of U.S. states compared with Google Earth. When students learn about the location of states, Google Earth helps to add a personal perspective and give students a sense of where they are in the world. A teacher can start in the student’s hometown and zoom out to show the state, which is more helpful than showing a student on a standard two-dimensional paper map. Google Earth adds a geographic perspective to learning, which Adam and Mowers (2007) say can be used for anything from basic counting to history and literature. Wilson et al. (2009) also discuss the implementation of Google Earth in an elementary school setting, although they address the topic of environmental inquiry. Using imagery from the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) layer of Google Earth, students analyzed before and after pictures of rivers and cities to uncover the negative impacts of overpopulation and urbanization on certain areas of the globe. Their studies also found that the use of Google Earth added interest to the topic for students who were not as involved in other classroom activities, citing two C-average students in the class receiving grades above 90% on the Google Earth assignments. While Google Earth is being embraced by K-12 teachers, there may be some disadvantages to using this software. In his article Google Earth as a (Not Just) Geography Education Tool, Patterson (2007) raises several positive and negative points about implementing Google Earth in the classroom. Google Earth is a form of Geographical Information System, in which points are plotted on a map. Patterson sees the potential benefits of using a program such as Google Earth to teach geography and the Earth sciences in which a geographical visual aid would be helpful. However, Patterson also addresses the potential negatives that can be encountered with Google Earth, which mostly relate to a lack of technology on the school’s part.
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