Connecting our students’ learning to the real world is an essential piece of the learning puzzle. We are so lucky in this day and age to have access to amazing digital resources that we can utilize in the classroom environment. Using technologies such as Google Earth offers our students exciting ways to make meaningful connections to the outside world from their very own classroom. 

Some real-world maths activities and experiences with Google Earth:

• Measure distances between two different destinations (e.g. school and home).
• Measure and compare the roof area of houses (students compare their roof area with a friend).
• Informal measurement – students take a screenshot of a familiar place in their neighborhood – like a local park. They take a screenshot on their iPad and then use emoji’s to measure the area of the park.
• Exploring location and general mapping skills including compass directions (north, south, east and west).
• Consolidate positional language with younger students. Go to street view and use positional language such as above, below, in-between, beside, etc.
• Explore time zones around the world.

• Use Google Earth to explore and consolidate your students’ knowledge of latitude and longitude using a variety of activities.
• Students can go on a scavenger hunt, finding the coordinates of their school, the closest park, the closest train station or the closest library, and write down the geographical coordinates of these places.

• Across the world, there is a multitude of different landmarks (man-made and natural) for students to explore. In small groups, provide students with a particular landmark and get them to really discover this landmark by ‘visiting’ it in Google Earth.
• Get them to write down the coordinates or even get them to plan out a virtual tour of their chosen landmark. They can also write out some interesting facts about this landmark and present their findings to the class.
• Explore natural landscapes and features of your very own country with Google Earth. Students can research a particular natural landmark and report back to the class.

Explore Environments with Google Earth

A number of different environments are explored including; coniferous forests, deciduous forests, deserts, grasslands, and rainforests.

Explore Countries and Continents with Google Earth

What better way to explore the natural environments and topographical features of a continent by virtually visiting these places! Students can even use Google Earth to research and present about a particular country and it’s culture. Or even explore their very own heritage.