This Is My Home (Google Earth)

Group students into small groups and have them answer two questions:

• What city and country are you from?
• Tell us one or two interesting things about your native city.

After a few minutes, have one student from each group report one interesting thing that they heard from one of the students in their group.

Project Google Earth on the board.

 

Tell the students that they will use Google Earth to find their native city and write a short report on it.

 
Have the students vote on a region to visit from the choices on the right. Click on their choice. Let's use the Americas as an example.
 
 
 
Read the text (and/or have your students read) on the right and ask questions to check for comprehension.
 
(Teacher tip: If the English is too complicated for your level, you could copy the text into a program that can help you to rewrite the text for your ESL level.)

Click the white back arrow on the left of "This Is Home" to go back to the map contents.

You could read more examples as a whole class or group students and let them choose what to read. They could even report on a couple of interesting facts from their reading.

Now, explain that the students will search for their own native city, copy the location, and write a short report on their city.

Use your own native city as an example. Type the name of your city in the "Search Google Earth" window.

 

 If you'd like, drag the map and use the zoom in tool (in the bottom right corner) to zoom in on your neighborhood.

 

At this point, you can decide how students will share the URL with the class. One easy option would be to use a Google Doc. This would allow students to also write their short report. I'll use this option for the remainder of the lesson.

 

Open a new Google Doc, title it "My Native City", and insert the Google Earth link by clicking 'insert', then 'link'. Write the name of the city and country and paste the link.

 

 

Finally, write a short description of your city.

 

 

 

Now, the students will find their own city on Google Earth, copy the url, and write a report on a Google Doc.

There are different options for using Google Docs. You could have each student create their own, create one doc for each group and share it with that group, or create one document for the class, create a table with one cell for each student, and share the doc with the class. Then, each student could insert their city and their report into one of the cells.

You may want to pair or create small groups so your students will have support if they have trouble finding their native city, accessing the Google Doc, linking the Google Earth page, or any other technical problems.

Variation: Students could record their report and speak over an image of the Google Earth map.

Once the students have pasted a link to their Google Earth page and written a report, there are a variety of ways to evaluate:

Teacher assessment: The students could post links to their Google Docs on an LMS discussion page, email the links to the teacher, or share the Docs with the teacher's email. Then, the teacher could grade the reports using a rubric.

Peer assessment: There are numerous ways to do this. For example, if the students post links on an LMS discussion page, they could verify that the Google Earth link actually goes to the location that the student stated in their report. Alternatively, if the teacher set up a whole-class shared Google Doc with a table where students posted their links, the teacher could assign cells to groups of students who could verify that the Google Earth link actually goes to the location that the student stated in their report.

There are endless options for extending the activity.

One idea would be to have students choose a favorite place on Earth or a place that they'd love to visit, search for it on Google Earth, and write a short report with a link to the Google Earth location, like Disney World, the Great Wall of China, or Chichén Itzá.

Another idea would be to have a treasure hunt with questions that would require students to do searches on Google Earth, like, "In which country is the Tower of Pisa?" "What's the name of the museum next to Central Park between 88th and 89th street in New York City?"