Using Google Earth 5.0 historical imagery with Magic Revealers

[Rosie MacAlpine]

Google Earth have released a significant new update which has some lovely new features (which all look fab on a Promethean board :) )
One of the things I really like is the historical imagery feature. When you click on that button (a clock) you get a sliding scale and you can explore the satellite imagery for different dates. So far, I've just seen dates ranging from 2002 - 2009, but apparently some parts of the US include imagery as far back as the 1950's.


I think this feature works really well with Magic Revealers / Magic Ink as it allows you to directly compare different parts of the picture. I used the camera tool to take snapshots of each view in my childhood town in Western Australia, put the latest view on the top layer and then added a magnifying glass to see through to the older layer.

There's a good post on the new features in this Google Earth version at http://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2009/02/google_earth_5_historical_imagery.html

My two images were shown in a slightly different place in Google Earth, so I made the top layer transparent, nudged it with the arrow keys until the two images were aligned, then reduced the transparency again.

[sdreyer]

Thanks for sharing! I just made a flipchart with images of our campus from 1995-present to share with our teachers. I was able to get 6 images, and I put them 2 to a page and am using the transparency slider to gradually reveal the image below.

[mrsb]

Rosie,

As always, your Planet contributions are so relevant and useful! Thanks for passing along this info on Google Earth. My students love to see the images of various locations and are amazed at what satellites can do! This is an even more interesting way to use Google Earth within the classroom. I will be sharing this update with my colleagues as soon as I return to school tomorrow. It's been a very productive President's Day on the Planet. Thanks again![clap][clap][clap]

[Rosie MacAlpine]

Thanks guys :) I'm concious that I don't use nearly enough of the Google Earth features - and it's such a great thing to explore on the board!