Thursday, June 21, 2007

Where on (Google) Earth #19

I'm still learning how to insert pictures into blogspot posts (and, actually, how to collect images from Google Earth). Apologies if this is small. (And if you've got hints about how to make these come out better, please share!)



Also, as another aside - has anyone tried to use something like this game in teaching? I think it could be a fun extra credit exercise - put up one Google Earth image a week, and have students e-mail me their guesses about where it is, and what it shows.

8 comments:

Yami McMoots said...

I finally got one! 64º52'N 66º10'W.

No trees, young mountains, and a west-facing coast - better try Alaska.

Yami McMoots said...

I am totally jumping the gun here, but I posted the next one anyway.

Kim said...

166° W, actually, but that's just a typo.

And you're actually the first one to reply.

Yami McMoots said...

Retroactively legitimated! Wooo!

Kim said...

I wanted to zoom in closer - there are some cool periglacial features in the area - but the resolution wasn't good enough. Go figure.

The young mountain range is actually a normal-faulted range, not the norm for Alaska at all. And the highest peak is lower than 5000 feet.

C W Magee said...

I was struck by the fact that despite having current glaciers, the LGM valleys didn't reach the coast.

Ron Schott said...

Tectonite,

Yes, I have tried to incorporate Google Earth extra credit like these posts in my Intro Geology class. It was kind of late in the spring semester, though, and without a specific reward tied to it, it never really generated any response. I'm hoping to make a more structured exercise involving Google Earth a regular part of my Intro Geology classes this fall.

Students in Intro generally love it when I use Google Earth to illustrate geological features in class - I'm eagerly awaiting the day I can expect all of them to have laptops of their own and incorporate participatory discovery with Google Earth into class. For example, I expect one day to be able to lecture about alpine glacial landforms during the first part of class and then give the students the last 10 minutes of lecture to find some on their own in Google Earth, and send me a placemark with a text description of what they found.

I'm hoping folks who are using Google Earth for things like this will consider submitting an abstract to my GSA session this fall in Denver: Geosciences and Web 2.0: Blogs, Wikis, Podcasting, and Web Video - I know Google Earth doesn't strictly fall under this definition, but I intend to interpret Web 2.0 very broadly, and I think Google Earth qualifies.

Kim said...

Chuck -

It's the Bering land bridge area - the coast wasn't even there during the LGM - the land stretched all the way to Russia. It's really striking, though, how limited the last glaciation was in the area. I guess (though I don't know) that precipitation was a lot lower than it is now. Maybe because the Bering Strait wasn't there? I don't know how the sub-polar low pressure zones shifted during the LGM, either. It sure rains a lot there now.

Ron -

Thanks! I just put Google Earth on my laptop near the end of last semester (on the suggestion of a student who wanted to look at an area on Google Earth before drawing a cross-section), and haven't played with it much.

I'm thinking that a game like this might be a really good weekly exercise for my intro class. I'll try it as extra credit (and a way to make up for missing Friday quizzes) and see if there are any technical problems that would make it difficult to require it. (A lot of students don't have internet, let alone high-speed internet, at home, so I hesitate to create assignments that force them to spend a lot of image-intensive time online.)