Work for 8D

Good morning 8D! I'm sorry that I am not there for your first lesson back... However... Your challenge for today is to use Google Earth to produce a fantastic piece of art work... Below are two of my favourite examples from Year 8 groups over the past couple of years, and you can see some of the others by clicking here.

To make your own...

1. Open Google Earth (Start, Swanwick Hall, Humanities, Google Earth).

2. Spend some time exploring, and find yourself a beautiful view.

3. Open a new Ppt presentation.

4. Back in Google Earth, make sure you are happy with your view - do you want to zoom in or out, or tilt it? You'll probably also want to turn several layers (Gallery, Panoramio, Borders and Labels, etc. off - do this towards the bottom of the sidebar on the left - this will remove "clutter" from your view), then take a screenshot (hold down Ctrl + press PrtScn).

5. Paste your screenshot into your Ppt slide.

6. Crop your screenshot until you are happy with it.

7. Right-click on your picture, and select "Save as picture..." Give your picture a sensible name, and save it in your user area (preferably in a Geography folder!). Check that the filetype (in the dropdown box below where you type the filename) is .png or .jpg.

8. Go to the Big Huge Labs website. Upload your picture, and then experiment with colours, etc. and give your work a caption.

9. When you are completely happy with it, click Create. Once your finished poster appears, you can either go back and edit it, or click Save. Save the file to your computer, giving it a filename that includes your name.

10. Open your school emails. Type vel into the address bar, and then attach your finished work (not the screenshot from your ppt). Send!

I am expecting AT LEAST one brilliant piece of work from each of you, and we'll have a look at everyone's work when I see you on Tuesday.

Good luck and have fun! Miss Ellis :)

How big is the oil spill?

Attempts to manage the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico are still ongoing and, in amongst all the election talk, there are various news articles about the impacts of the oil spill and the consequences for BP. The BBC's coverage is here.

Below is a screenshot from a nice Google Earth interactive map that allows you to compare the extent of the oil spill (which might not look that big when it's in the sea) to various cities around the world. Click on the picture to link to the site.

Santa Tracking....

Don't forget to keep track of Santa's progress on Christmas Eve...

Highlights from last year here:



Merry Christmas!

Happy Halloween

Celebrate Halloween by turning Google Earth into a giant pumpkin.... Click here to go to the GE Blog, and download the .kmz file from the link in the first paragraph. Thanks to Kenny O'Donnell for the tipoff.


This is also fun, though not especially geographical...

8BL - Earth as Art challenge...

Good morning 8BL! Your challenge for today is to use Google Earth to produce a fantastic piece of art work... Below are two of my favourite examples from last year's Year 8 groups, and you can see some of the others by clicking here.

To make your own...

1. Open Google Earth (Start, Swanwick Hall, Humanities, Google Earth).

2. Spend some time exploring, and find yourself a beautiful view.

3. Open a new Ppt presentation.

4. Back in Google Earth, make sure you are happy with your view (do you want to zoom in or out, or tilt it?), then take a screenshot (hold down Ctrl + press PrtScn).

5. Paste your screenshot into your Ppt slide.

6. Crop your screenshot until you are happy with it.

7. Right-click on your picture, and select "Save as picture..." Give your picture a sensible name, and save it in your user area (preferably in a Geography folder!). Check that the filetype (in the dropdown box below where you type the filename) is .png or .jpg.

8. Go to the Big Huge Labs website. Upload your picture, and then experiment with colours, etc. and give your work a caption.

9. When you are completely happy with it, click Create. Once your finished poster appears, you can either go back and edit it, or click Save. Save the file to your computer, giving it a filename that includes your name.

10. Open your school emails. Type vel into the address bar, and then attach your finished work (not the screenshot from your ppt). Send!

I am expecting two brilliant pieces of work from each pair, and we will have a look at everyone's work on Friday morning. Have fun!

Dancing Matt...

I've posted about Dancing Matt before, but this is for the benefit of Year 8, especially 8BL, who enjoyed watching Matt's 2008 video this morning...



If you want to have a look at the other videos, including out-takes, and also check out maps and Google Earth files of where Matt has danced, they're all on his website here. (I have not read all of the comments on the website, or posted on the YouTube videos, and so I cannot guarantee that there aren't any rude words there.... If there are, I am very sorry!)

Earthquake in Italy and Chilean volcano

I was reminded when I switched the news on this morning of my A Level Geography teacher, who used to say that every time he taught plate tectonics, he could almost guarantee there'd be an earthquake or a volcanic eruption somewhere in the world. That's certainly seemed to be the case every time I've taught it, and just the other day I told Yr13 to watch the news over the holidays.

Sadly, the first news item I saw this morning was that an earthquake in Italy had killed at least 16 people. According to the BBC website, the death toll is now 27. The magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck the medieval city of L'Aquila in the early hours of this morning, causing many of the city's 70,000 residents to run out into the streets in panic. The age of the buildings meant that many of them were unable to withstand the quake, and the narrow mountainous roads are making rescue attempts more difficult.

The Google Earth screenshot below shows the area, with the USGS earthquakes layer enabled.

More from the BBC here.

Also on the same news bulletin was that the Llaima volcano in Chile has been "spewing lava, ash and gas" overnight, causing many people from the surrounding area to be evacuated. As well as the danger from the eruption itself, melting snow is increasing the risk of mudslides, and volcanic ash has caused river levels in the area to increase. More here.

OS map overlays for Google Earth

Very impressed with Gavin Brock's OS map overlays for Google Earth... (Thanks to Noel Jenkins for the tip-off.) Like the fabulous Where's the Path?, which I have posted about before, there is a limit of 30,000 map tiles per day, but it will be very useful nonetheless.

The screenshot (showing Llyn Ogwen, Cwm Idwal and the Nant Ffrancon valley, where Yr12 are headed on Wednesday) was taken with the overlay set to semi-transparent so you can see clearly how the terrain links to the contours on the map...

Hunga Ha'apai

Lots of you were asking yesterday about the eruption of Hunga Ha'apai, the underwater volcano near Tonga, in the Pacific Ocean.

The Google Earth screenshot below shows the area, with the USGS earthquake overlay and the Smithsonian Global Volcanism overlay turned on...


A Google News search will bring up lots of articles, videos and photos... More here from the Times Online, and some superb images from The Big Picture.

Happy (belated) Valentine's Day!

Valentine's Day Google Earth style! Thanks to Liz Smith and Google Earth Blog

Where's Wally?

If you're a "Where's Wally?" fan or a Google Earth fan (or both!) then today might be your lucky day!! Borders Books and the Daily Telegraph are running a competition (with holidays up for grabs as prizes) - and all you have to do is to find Wally in Google Earth!

Click on the picture below to find out more... And then get searching!!

360 Cities

If you have some time on your hands, have a look at this fantastic website which I had heard about before but hadn't explored until Ollie Bray reminded us about it yesterday...


360 Cities has some stunning panoramic photography from all over the world, and - despite the name - not all of it is city-based... This one, for example, is the beautiful Landmannalaugur in Iceland:

You can also use the little Google Earth icon in the bottom right hand corner of the image to view it in Google Earth...

Earth as Art...

8KJe spent their lesson this morning using Google Earth to create some superb art work... My personal favourite is Kieran's "Fjord Claws" below, but you can check out some of the others on Geogtastic's new Flickr pages.


If you want to create your own, have a look at Big Huge Labs Motivator tool.

Questions...

Thanks to Daniel Letouzey for pointing out this unusual image in Google Earth...

Where in the world is it? And what on earth are the little coloured squares all about?!

Track Santa...

Although there are a few days still to go, I've been pestered several times today about this website, so thought I'd better blog it while I remembered!

Santa, it seems, is a bit of a techno-whizz, and for the last few years, has had a GPS attached to his sleigh... That means that on Christmas Eve, you can use the Norad Santa site to track Santa's progress, see how long it'll be before he gets to your house, and make sure that you're safely tucked up in bed in plenty of time!

In 2005 and 2006, it was also possible to use Google Earth to see what Santa was upto and you can have a look at Santa's route, etc. here. This year, Google Earth and Norad have teamed up and are working together, so you just have the one site to follow.

Obviously, as Santa won't be setting off until 24th December, there's not much to see at the moment. There are, however, a number of games to keep you entertained in the meantime! Click on the picture below to link to the site...

Day for Darfur

The humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan has been described as "one of the greatest tragedies of our time"... Since 2003, more than 200,000 people have been killed, and more than 2 million people displaced.

Today - Day for Darfur - rallies and protests have taken place in 30 cities across the world in an attempt to draw the world's attention to the violence in Darfur, and a new single by Mattafix - "Living Darfur" - was released. The video for the single - backed by Mick Jagger, George Clooney and Nelson Mandela - to name but a few, was filmed in the Darfur region. The picture below shows Marlon from Mattafix with children in Darfur. Marlon's diary from the visit to Darfur is here.

Amazingly, I have watched the news several times today, and there has been no mention of Darfur, the rallies, or the single, at all. Why not?

Some months ago, the US Holocaust Museum put together a series of photographs, eyewitness testimonies and data, using Google Earth to give some indication of the scale of the genocide in Darfur. http://www.ushmm.org/googleearth/

Busy!!

Apologies for the lack of posts recently...

Yesterday I was in Leeds, listening to Edexcel trying to sell their new A level course which will be ready for teaching from September 2008... If any of you, especially those who've just finished A levels or might be thinking of A level Geography in the next couple of years, are short of something to do and fancy having a look at the new specs, I'd be interested to hear what you have to say! You can find them by visiting the exam board websites (Edexcel, AQA, OCR, WJEC) or come and see me...

I also had a trip down to London last week, for an excellent course about Google Earth, run by GE guru Noel Jenkins... I learnt lots, and also had chance to play with a fantastic "space navigator" . Now that (I hope!) we have Google Earth on the network, 7RPr will be having a chance to find out a bit more about it...

On Saturday, I was at the University of Leeds, for the 21st Century Geography Conference - some really interesting lectures (including regeneration/rebranding in Leeds, and avalanche risk in Iceland), and great to meet up with fellow geography teachers... What I saw of the Geography Department at Leeds looked excellent - worth checking out for those of you thinking of Geography at university!

Crisis in Darfur

The US Holocaust Memorial Museum and Google Earth have launched a new project today, to increase awareness and understanding of the conflict and violence that have resulted in more than 300,000 people being killed and about 2,500,000 people being driven from their homes in the Darfur region of Sudan since 2004.

If you already have Google Earth, then the Darfur region should be highlighted. If not, you can download GE here.

The BBC coverage of the story is here, and you can find out more about the project from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum website.

Interesting things to do with Google Earth...

Noel Jenkins has just pointed out this superb new blog with lots of really useful and interesting files. Amongst them, there are several Cold Environments related ones that will be of particular interest to Yr13, the Indonesian "mudvolcano" that I've posted about before, and a tour of some of the world's crop circles!

Answers to the mysteries...

I've just realised that I've posted at least two mystery questions and not answered them! So...

This place, which I discovered via Geograph in Google Earth is the remains of Farnah Hall near Duffield. It was described in White's 1857 Directory of Derbyshire as "a large elegant mansion situate in a fine park"! Have you ever been there, or do you know any more about it?

This one, which should be of particular interest to Yr 11, shows the construction of a distribution centre just outside Swansea for Amazon. The first phase is expected to be completed in October this year, and will bring 1200 full-time jobs and a further 1500 temporary jobs around Christmas time to the region. The picture will take you to the full story from the BBC.