Upper School (Grades 9-12)
 
Feel free to collaborate with me.  Add one of your ideas for integrating Google Maps, Earth, and SketchUp into the Lower School Classroom here, or flush out one of these basic ideas.
 
1.  Create virtual field trip reports.  You can add text and pictures of the trip, or embed video.  You could even animate the trip using MovieMaker in Google Earth so that those who didn't get to go could get an idea of what was done.  For Example: Students of the Walker School in Marietta, GA participated in the 2008 Georgia Geological Society annual field trip. A complete description of this project can be found on From the Earth

2.  Create lit trips to learn about the places discussed in a novel.  For example, student in English 9 read the book Whale Rider by Witi Ihimaera and then spent some time researching the migration patterns of Wright Whales.  For their layer in Google Earth, students followed the path of the whales from Anarctica to South America and New Zealand.  Students also researched the role they played in Maori culture.  You could us networking software and Google Talk to contact schools in locations of the book and begin a conservation between your students and Maori students in New Zealand and those in South America to get their point of view.

 

3.  Do research on a issue of importace to you school and show your results in Google Earth.  For Example: Students in AP Environmental Science read the book Garbage Land by Elizabeth Royte and then spent the spring semester looking at what trash our school creates and where it goes. Students identified key activities at our school that contribute to our waste stream, visited an electronic waste recycling plan, a transfer station, and a landfill. Whenever possible we interviewed key personnel and created vodcasts which can be viewed on our project wiki. This project is an ongoing exploration. Walker students want to encourage other schools around the country to trace their trash and contribute to our layer in Google Earth Pro. We hope that this information will stimulate discussion on education and waste management and will be used to develop a grass roots plan to reduce our waste stream.

 

4. Learn about history by tracing the path of a famous explorer.  For Example: Students in Outdoor Culture and Technology used Google Earth Pro to create a layer of A famous explores and their expeditions around the globe. Some of the explorers studied were Cook, Magellan, Hillary, and The Blind Traveler. Some students also elected to goecode modern explorations and adventures. In each case students looked the historical significane of these trips, such as Cook's journey to measure the Transit of Venus in the 1700's.  All student work can be viewed on the final projects page for this course.

 

5.  Study the poetry of place.  For Example: A Walker senior worked with her English, history, and technology teachers to create a layer in Google Earth Pro. The student was interested in learning how aspects of poetry, history, and our ideas of place could be combined and analyzed in new ways using a mash-up such as Google Earth. The student created a podcast of each poem and embedded it into the placemark so you can listen to them.  This project can be found on Google Lit Trips.

 

6.  Build community in your school.  For Example: Students of Outdoor Culture and Technology created a layer in Google Earth Pro of adventure trips that Walker students had been on. Some of the trips discussed relate to kayaking, climbing, caving, tubing, and hiking. This project was completed early in the semester and was used to introduce students to their classmates. This is an ongoing project.  As more students add their trips to this layer each year, we hope to create an online Walker alumni adventure community related to outdoor extreme sports and responsible eco-tourism.
 
7. Raise global awarness and encourage students to take collaborative action.  Students of our Internet Technology course study the structure of the Internet and its uses. Of particular interest to students at Walker are how the Internet is used by marginalize groups to communicate with each other. Students in this class participated in creating a social networking site on Ning, videos, a wiki, and a layer in Google Earth about how children are marginalized around the globe through poverty, disease, warfare, human trafficking, developmental disorders, malnutrition, and sexual orientation. We hope to build on the layer from year to year and to encourage collaboration from other schools around the globe to raise money and get involved.
 
8.  Take some responsibility for your environment.  The Clean Watersheds Project is an interdisciplinary collaboartive watershed monitoring project that uses Google Earth Pro to store and share watershed data. Our main goal is to empower our community of parents, teachers, students and environmental experts to collect, post, and analyze data about our changing watersheds in an effort to improve the health of our national watersheds. We hope this community will inspire us to come together and learn how each of us can take responsibility for our environment. Participating schools can apply to receive licensed copies of Google Earth Pro in order to participate. If you are interested in helping us collect data for this project, or have a great idea on how to improve it, please contact the project coordinator, Mr. Thomas Cooper at coopert@thewalkerschool.org. We would also encourage you to join our community and participate in our discussions on Ning.