travel travel with By Yvonne Eve Walus*

Want to take your kids around the world but can’t afford the airfare? Check-in to your nearest computer and let Google Earth take you on an international trip with a difference.

“What are you doing?” asked my 9-year old son. l Using the Ruler tool to calculate distances. geo browsers Google Earth is what is known as a geographic browser. I didn’t even look up from my computer screen. Something l Downloading free maths activities for Google Earth from Other examples of geo browsers include NASA’s World was wrong and the programme wasn’t showing me Eiffel www.realworldmath.org/. Wind, ESRI’s ArcGIS Explorer, GeoFusions’ GeoPlayer, and EarthBrowser by Lunar Software. Tower, even though I entered its name into the search box. l Exploring with Street View Oceans: see coral reefs in “Researching Google Earth for a Tots To Teens article. Have Bermuda, sea lions frolicking in the Galapagos sea, google map maker turtles in the Great Barrier Reef and a sunken car you practised your piano?” With Google Map Maker as a tool, you can update your hosting sea life. “Yes, Mummy. Can I show you how Google Earth neighbourhood’s geographic information. Your updates may be visible to the world through Google Maps and actually works?” google earth and Google Earth. That Sunday afternoon I learnt two things. How Google Earth actually works and that sometimes our children already parental involvement YouTube EDU know all the technology stuff we’d like to teach them. “How do you and your classmates use Google Earth?” YouTube EDU allows you to access educational videos such as short lectures, full courses and inspirational I ask my son. speeches. It’s like YouTube but geared towards learning. “We fly around the world,” he tells me. “We put pins in what is google earth? The best thing is, you don’t have to be a passive interesting locations.” Google Earth helps children visualise and discover the world consumer. Children can have fun creating educational videos (e.g. how to make a potato battery, how to sew on around them. It’s an online programme you download (www. Indeed, a pin called My Office decorates the Beehive and My a button, how to make origami) and uploading it to Bedroom is on Mars. Great for creativity, expanding your google.co.nz/earth/download/ge/) that lets you explore the YouTube Edu. earth using 3D maps and 3D street views. It also has some imagination, and role-playing with your friends, but that’s not how to learn science or social sciences. library images of forests and mountains, so you can see google cultural institute inside the White House, including all the details of the Oval “So let’s have a look at our house,” I say. “Look, there’s our Google Cultural Institute is a fascinating collection of photos, manuscripts, letters, and video interviews. Grouped Office décor, as well as the spots on a jaguar inside the car right there. Do you think it’s a good idea that everybody together into topics, they allow you to discover more about can see what cars are parked at our house?” Amazon Jungle. subjects as diverse as Nelson Mandela, Women in Culture, Imagine that. A tool that lets you fly anywhere on earth to We have a brief discussion about privacy. We Google “Can Archaeology of India, Jewish History, Development of Computers, Impressionist Art and many others. view buildings, terrain and satellite imagery. It lets you Google Earth invade your privacy?” Fortunately, it turns out explore oceans, land on the moon, see the galaxy. For the Google Earth is not a live Geographic Information System (GIS). Rather, it’s a collection of maps and geographic improve your search ability adventurous, it even has a flight simulator that allows you to Search Education (www.google.co.nz/insidesearch/ information that’s weeks old. So people can’t spy on us right pilot an aeroplane while you’re flying around the planet. searcheducation) is a fantastic tool that teaches children at this very minute, though they might learn what delivery how to become skilled internet searchers, critical thinkers Google Earth can provide a lot of information about a truck was at our house last week. Still, there are confidential and independent learners. location: roads, border labels, parks, etc. Viewing it all at places in the world, such as military bases and nuclear A Google a Day (www.agoogleaday.com) provides a daily once would be confusing, so the information is stored in plants that are blanked out on Google Earth. puzzle from Google. You get a question and have to handy layers that you can turn on or off as you need them. “Shall we look at the Wonders of the World?” I suggest. devise a Google search in order to answer it. There’s no right way to design the Internet search, but there’s only “Maybe Victoria Falls?” one right answer. An example of such a question: “Who how do you use google earth? “What’s that?” my son asks. founded the company named for the man who invented With younger children, you can start off by showing them I give a whoop of joy. Yes! I can be of use as a parent. vulcanised rubber?” your house, their kindy, their best friend’s house. If they have Because this is the amazing thing: children still need our google translate family in another city or another country, you can expand to help and guidance with Google Earth. They know how to A free online translator, Google Translate, can help you show them that. If not, you can discover where Nemo and Dory upgrade the software to the paid-for option, change the translate text to and from over 70 languages. A caveat live and the route Nemo travelled from the reef to Sydney. Older views and crash-land the SR22 plane provided, but they here: while this service may allow you to understand a children can explore the Paris of the Smurfs 2 movie. don’t know quite how much they don’t know about the world French article or a Spanish website, don’t attempt to out there. We need to pique their curiosity about what it’s translate full sentences in order to impress your email School children might be interested in the following: buddy overseas: the translating engine does not like to walk the streets of Paris, whet their appetite for more understand idioms or slang, so the resulting translated l Finding the globe’s volcanoes and researching details knowledge about our galaxy, make them want to calculate text is often comical or even nonsensical. about their locations. the distance between New York and Washington DC.

l Mapping the journey our food takes from the farm to our Our children look to us to provide them with context and plate, and investigating the environmental impact of food purpose. That goes for Google Earth as well as for all our choices. children’s learning. l Travelling back in time to learn about their own * Yvonne is an education specialist, a senior consultant neighbourhood and how it’s changed over the years. to Creative Learning Systems in Auckland, and a mother l Viewing shipwrecks. of two children.