AS Google Earth Activities

Possible exam questions

Suggest how geographical information systems (GIS) help us understand the need for different types of coastal management strategies.

(15 marks)

Contents

Page

Introduction3

  1. Before you start4
  2. Saving your work4
  1. Getting started5
  1. Placemarks6
  2. Contents of placemarks6
  3. Adding placemarks7
  4. Amending the placemarks8
  5. Adding images to placemarks8
  6. From the internet8
  7. From the P-drive9
  8. a. Adding graphs (Microsoft Excel)9

iii. b. Adding graphs (GeGraph)10

  1. Creating a tour13
  2. Organising placemarks13
  3. Saving placemarks13
  4. Playing a tour13
  1. Overlays: land use survey14
  1. Historical imagery17
  1. Ruler tool18

Summary of using GIS with fieldwork20

A few final words…23

Introduction

Welcome to the first part of the evening session for consolidating your Crowded Coasts field work experiences 

Google Earth (free online download of software) is an example of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) because of the principle of working with different layers of information. These layers can be manually and easily switched on and off depending on what it is you want to be showing.

In the session tonight you are going to use various skills through Google Earth to illustrate your findings from today. For example you will have located placemarks to show where you visited, along with a short written explanation and possibly with a picture or graph to support. If you have more than three placemarks, you can then create a tour to automatically take the viewer to these locations with a set amount of time at each.

The important thing about tonight is that you experience the different things you can do on Google Earth and how they can be used to help consolidate field work. By the end of the night you will have learnt a vast array of funkiness on Google Earth and be able to answer an exam question based on GIS.
1. Before you start

Google Earth is already downloaded onto the school system. Open the yellow Geography folder on the desktop. Google Earth is the sixth icon to the right and looks like a blue and white marble. Double left click to open the software.

Everything you create in Google Earth will have its own layer. You can control whether you see these layers and their content by checking and unchecking the relevant boxes

  1. Under Layerson the bottom left hand side of the screen, ensure all boxes are unchecked except for terrain. This will de-clutter your Google Earth view and speed up loading etc

Figure 1: Layers

Saving your work

You can save a Placemark like any other file on your computer

  1. Right click on the placemark or folder you wish to save
  1. Select Save Place As. This will open a dialogue box similar to other programmes
  1. Select the File name you would like to use. You will also see that there are two choices for Save as type – Kml (*.kml) and Kmz (*.kmz). Choose Kmz only if you have inserted pictures from your computer or a shared drive into the placemarks. Otherwise choose Kml

2. Getting started

Under Search, in the Fly to search bar type inwherever it is you live and single left click the magnifying glass – let’s get this out your system now! You may also search for the school

Now back to the more serious work

  1. Under Search, in the Fly to search bar type in50 39'6.44"N,

157'14.23"W. These are your co-ordinates for the café at KnollBeach at Studland. Single left click the magnifying glass to the right of the search bar for your flight to Studland

Figure 2: Search panel

  1. The co-ordinates title from your search will be in the way on the Google image. To remove it, uncheck the box on the left hand side under Search

3. Placemarks

Aim: to provide you with an understanding of how you can use GIS to locate specific places, and illustrate relevant data at those locations within Google Earth. These can be used in future to compare changes over time of the various aspects

Instructions

You will need to add a Placemarkto at least the following locations;

  1. Studland
  • Curve in Bay
  • KnollBeach
  • MiddleBeach
  1. Sandbanks
  • Cluster of 4 groynes at North Haven (Site 1 and 2)

Extension:

  1. Add different colour/icon Placemarks to illustrate the various coastal defences you conducted a bi-polar evaluation on
  2. To get different colours, single left click the Placemark icon to the right of Placemark Name

3a. Content of Placemarks

You need to cover a number of aspects and data within these Placemarks. It is up to you which Placemark you demonstrate the data in, as long as you cover the content somewhere between Studland and Sandbanks. You need to cover the following within the Placemarks;

  1. Field notes
  2. Assessing coastal defence schemes
  3. Stakeholder interview
  4. Graph – either Excel or GeGraph

The content of your Placemark needs to include a dialogue about the site and an image/photograph

For assessing coastal defence schemes, you will need to create graphs either in Microsoft Excel or GeGraph (see p8).

As long as each of the 3 aspects above are covered in good detail and located in at least 2 of the specified locations, you may move onto the Adding overlays section (Section 5)

3b. Adding Placemarks

  1. Select the yellow placemark, shaped like a drawing pin
  1. The New Placemark dialog box appears and a New Placemark icon is centred in the viewer inside a flashing yellow square
  1. Name your placemark Knoll Beach
  1. Enter 50 39'6.44"N in the Latitude box
  1. Enter 1 57'14.23"W in the Longitude box. Your placemark will relocate itself automatically to these co-ordinates
  1. Under Description, type some details about KnollBeach. You may include what facilities the National Trust have there, what the environment is like, field notes about the weather conditions, stakeholder interview etc

Figure 3: Placemark dialogue box

3c. Amending the Placemark

  1. Under Places, single right click the name of the placemark you wish to amend
  1. Single left click Properties
  1. The Edit placemark dialogue box will appear and you can edit your placemark details
  1. Click Ok to save the details

3d. Adding images to placemarks

i. From the internet

  1. Find the image you wish to use under Google images
  1. Single right click on the image, select Copy Image Location and paste this into your Placemark dialogue boxusing<img src="your URL">
  1. When you click Ok, single left click on the placemark to see your description appear with your image

Figure 4: example code for adding internet images

ii. From the P-drive

  1. Find the image you wish to use in the Fieldwork area of the New AS folder
  1. Copy and paste the address after <img src="your hard drive address\Studland.jpg"width=”300”>
  1. Before “width…you must type in the name of the photograph after a backward dash (\) followed by .jpg
  1. When you click Ok, single left click on the placemark to see your description appear with your image

Figure 5: example code for adding computer based images

iiia. Adding graphs to placemarks (Microsoft Excel): basic

  1. Create the relevant graphs using Microsoft Excel(My Computer>P-Drive>SeniorSchool>Academic subjects>Geography>Sixth Form>Lower Sixth>New AS Level>Geographical Investigations>Fieldwork 2011>Studland and Sandbanks data)
  1. Take a screen shot of your chosen graph
  2. Paste into a PowerPoint presentation
  3. Single right click on the image
  4. Select Save as Picture
  5. Save in your own area as Sandbanks
  6. Import picture using steps 3dii above

iiib. Adding graphs to Google Earth (GeGraph): advanced

  1. Create Placemarks for your three study sites at Sandbanks (MiddleBeach, KnollBeach and Curve in bay)
  1. In Places on the left hand side of the screen, create a new folder
  2. Single right click anywhere in Places, without highlighting any other named placemarks
  3. Hover over Add so a new menu appears
  4. Single left click Folder
  5. Give the folder a new name, for example Longshore drift GeGraph
  1. Drag your three Placemarks into your new folder
  1. Single right click on your folder Longshore drift GeGraph
  1. Single left click Save Place As
  1. Save in your own area as Longshore drift GeGraph – you will need to open this file in the GeGraph software in the next stage

Figure 6: Saving Placemarks

  1. Open the yellow Geography folder on the desktop
  1. Double left click the GeGraph icon which opens a window like the one shown below
  1. Single left click File, and Open File
  1. Find your kml file saved from Google Earth in steps 1-7 above, and open

Figure 7: GeGraph dialogue box

  1. Single left click Run, where you will be prompted to Save the file as a kml file. If you can save it as a kmz file this is better, but kml is fine
  1. Your data is then exported automatically to Google Earth, perhaps looking something like Figure 8 below

Figure 8: Average longshore drift at the three Studland study sites

iv. Showing multiple items in Placemark dialogues

  1. If you want to show more than one thing in the description box, separate commands using the return button and typing <br> between commands

4. Creating a tour

Aim: to allow the viewer to effortlessly watch the various locations of placemarks and the details written within them

4a. Organising Placemarks

  1. To organise your placemarks, create folders by going to the Add menu and selecting Folder
  1. Give your folder a new name
  1. You can add a description if you wish
  1. Single left click OK when you have finished. The folder will appear in the Places panel
  1. To add placemarks to folders you can click on a placemark and drag it into the folder or use the cut and paste commands

4b. Saving Placemarks

You can save a placemark like any other file on your computer

  1. Right click on the placemark or folder you wish to save
  1. Select Save Place As. This will open a dialogue box similar to other programmes
  1. Select the File name you would like to use. You will also see that there are two choices for Save as type – Kml (*.kml) and Kmz (*.kmz). Choose Kmz only if you have inserted pictures from your computer or a shared drive into the placemarks. Otherwise choose Kml

4c. Playing a tour

Once you have put all your placemarks in a folder you can tour them.

  1. Highlight the folder you wish to tour and press the Play tour button indicated

Extension:

  1. To show the information popping up during your tour you will need to go to the Tools menu and select Options
  2. The middle tab shows you options for touring. Make sure that the box Show Balloon when tour is paused is checked
  3. You can also alter the speed and pause time of the tour

5. Overlays: land use survey

Aim: to understand that GIS works on the basis of layers which you can manipulate to illustrate different land uses, and activate when required. These can be built up over time to demonstrate changes in land use over time

Adding an overlay

1.Under Search, in the Fly to search bar type in 50 40'59.05"N, 1 56'45.53"W. These are your co-ordinates for the most southerly groyne in your field work at Sandbanks (Site 1). Click the magnifying glass to the right of the search bar for your flight to Sandbanks

2.Single left click the Add image overlay icon on your toolbar

3.The New Image Overlay dialog box appears

Figure 9: New Image Overlay dialogue box

8.Now you need to adjust the overlay using the methods below so you have a snug fit with the Google Earth image beneath

Figure 10: Sandbanks overlay

9.Using the land use survey data in your field work pack, create a colour scheme for the different types of land use. The amount of colours you need with depend on the number of different land uses you came across when collecting the data

10.Zoom into your Google Earth image so you can see the individual buildings

11.Select the Add Polygon icon in your toolbar

12.The New Polygon dialog box appears

13.What goes into this box effectively represents a key

Figure 11: New Polygon dialogue box

17.Continue for the rest of your land use survey

6. Historical imagery

Aim: to be able to measure the effectiveness of the groynes at Sandbanks over time at widening the beach. This is to be used in conjunction with the ruler tool (Section 6)

Instructions

1.Under Search, in the Fly to search bar type in 50 40'59.05"N, 1 56'45.53"W. These are your co-ordinates for the most southerly groyne in your field work at Sandbanks (Site 1). Click the magnifying glass to the right of the search bar for your flight to Sandbanks

2.Zoom into the image to approximately Eye alt 250-300m

3.Take a screen shot

  1. Paste into a PowerPoint
  2. Single right click on the image
  3. Select Save as Picture
  4. Save in your own area as Sandbanks

4.Add your screen shot (saved in Section5.3.a above as Sandbanks) as an overlay (see Section 4)

5.Single left click the Show historic imagery icon on your toolbar

6.A new toolbar pops up

Figure 12: historical imagery toolbar

7.Play with the slider to view the changes in beach width over time

7. Ruler tool

Aim: to be able to measure the effectiveness of the groynes at Sandbanks over time at widening the beach. This is to be used in conjunction with the historical imagery tool (Section 5)

Instructions

  1. Follow the instructions for 5. Historical imagery
  1. Set the historical imagery time to the earliest it will give you an image (around the year 2000)
  1. Single left click the Show Ruler icon on your toolbar
  1. A new toolbar pops up. This toolbar needs to be kept open whenever you want to measure a distance

Figure 13a: Ruler dialogue box

  1. A cross hair will appear where your mouse arrow was
  1. Single left click at the point where you would like to start the measuring – you need to be accurate!
  1. Do not drag but simply single left click at the point where you would like to stop the measuring – again you need to be accurate
  1. A measurement will appear in the Length box. If you wish to change the scale, single left click the drop down menu for a full choice (see Figure 13b below)

Figure 13b: Ruler dialogue box

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Summary of using GIS with fieldwork

Question focus / Fieldwork aspect / Research aspect
Coastal land use over time
Case studies: Sandbanks, Boscombe /
  1. Use a handheld GPS to plot locations of current landuse. Import into Google Earth afterwards
/
  1. Use Google Earth Placemarks with a description of what the land was used for at each point with a historical photograph. You can then create a tour
  2. Use Google Earth historical tool and overlay tool to view changes
  3. Use Google Earth polygon tool to highlight possible future land use

Understanding the need for different types of coastal management strategies
Case studies: Studland, Sandbanks, Boscombe, Holderness /
  1. Use a handheld GPS to plot locations of current coastal management strategies. Import into Google Earth afterwards
/
  1. Use Google Earth polygon tool to highlight geology/land use of the chosen location.
  1. Use Google Earth Placemarks to illustrate why the area needs managing, what coastal management strategies have been used previously, why they didn’t work and what is being used now.

How technology could assist in the study of coastal erosion
Case studies: Studland, Sandbanks, Holderness /
  1. Use a handheld GPS to locate particular features
  2. Geo-tagging digital photographs
  3. DVD to record the landscape
  4. Noise recordings using a dB meter at different locations/soundscape
  5. Pollution recordings (air, water, land) using different environmental probes
  6. Recording interviews using a Dictaphone or video with people discussing changes
  7. Spreadsheets to help process data from questionnaires
/
  1. Google Earth (see box above for details)
  2. Google Maps
  3. Digital maps, e.g. OS maps
  4. Memory Map
  5. Complex diagrams using maps to illustrate data collected
  6. Internet to access historical data, e.g. Census material
  7. Old photographs may be held electronically/digitally
  8. Blogs and Twitter
  9. Other online research
  10. Electronic copies of newspapers and letters, e.g. Bournemouth Daily Echo

Impacts of coastal development
Case studies: Sandbanks, Boscombe, Holderness, the Solent /
  1. Use a handheld GPS to plot locations of current landuse. Import into Google Earth afterwards
/
  1. Use Google Earth polygon tool to highlight areas of previous and new development, and areas of conservation
  1. Use Google Earth Placemarks to locate specific impacts, with a written description and appropriate image, or video clip embedded from You-Tube. You can then create a tour

Coastal development over time
Case studies: Sandbanks, Boscombe, (the Solent) /
  1. Use a handheld GPS to plot locations of current buildings/features and what they are used for. Import data into Google Earth afterwards
/
  1. Use Google Earth Placemarks with a description of what the land was used for at each point with a historical photograph. You can then create a tour
  2. Use Google Earth historical tool and overlay tool to view changes
  3. Use Google Earth polygon tool to highlight possible future land use

Evaluating the effectiveness of coastal management schemes
Case studies: Studland, Sandbanks, Holderness /
  1. Use a handheld GPS to plot locations of current buildings and what they are used for. Import data into Google Earth afterwards
/
  1. Use Google Earth Placemarks with a description of what the land was used for at each point with a historical photograph. You can then create a tour
  2. Use Google Earth historical tool and overlay tool to view changes
  3. Use Google Earth polygon tool to highlight possible future outcomes from current scenarios
  4. Use Google Earth ruler tool to measure the width of the beach following successful implementation of coastal management scheme. Compare either to a historical image in Google Earth, or data gathered from elsewhere, e.g. the Council

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