Tips for Using Google Earth to Present Student Research

Tips for Using Google Earth to Collect and Present Student Research

Google Earth provides a great way for students to use new technology to present their work, and it is the same tool many scientists now use to collect and analyze their data. The following tips will help you add your data (perhaps, from an ecosystem study or habitat survey) as a collection of placemarks that can be used to create a narrated tour and shared with others.

Quick Tour

Step 1 - Add a Placemark

First, navigate to the approximate location where you would like to add your placemark. You can use the search tool in the upper left toolbar to enter an address or longitude/latitude coordinates.
Go to the “Add” menu and select “Placemark”.
This will create a new placemark on the map in the middle of your current window and bring up the “Edit Placemark” dialogue box.

Step 2 – Edit a Placemark

To open the Edit dialogue box, simply select the placemark in the Places list in the left sidebar, or click on the placemark icon on the map and then go to the “Edit” menu and select “Get Info.” Alternatively, you can select “Get Info” after right-clicking on the placemark icon.

Once the dialogue box is open, you can:

Edit the placemark name
Change the location of the placemark by entering Latitude and Longitude coordinates, OR by clicking and dragging the placemark icon to a new location.
Change the placemark icon by clicking on the icon box in the top right of the dialogue box.
Add a description, which can include HTML code (see following list)
Change the color and size of the Placemark icon and label (in the “Style, Color” tab)
Change the view, that is, the map perspective you will see when you double-click on the placemark in the Places sidebar or when viewing the placemark as part of a tour. You can enter values into the boxes, or you can use the navigation tools to change the perspective to what you want it to be and then click “Snapshot current view” to automatically save the perspective you’re currently using.

Change the placemark’s altitude (relative to sea level).

Step 3 - Adding a Picture to the Description

Once you have added a description to your placemark, you can spice it up by adding a picture or video.

To add an image that’s located on the web, simply enter the following text:

Where:

 is the URL link of the image you wish to add from the web (required)

the width parameter is how wide you want the image to be in pixels (optional)

the align parameter specifies that you want the image to be left or right aligned and the text will wrap around it (optional, if you leave it out the image will be placed in-line)

and border is how wide in pixels you’d like the border to be. (optional)

If you would like to add an image from your computers, simply replace with the full path to the image file on your system. Something like:

You can also add YouTube videos to your description. Simply copy the “Embed” code from the video’s YouTube page and insert it into the description box.

When you’re done, your description box should look something like this:

Step 4 - Organize into Folders

Once you’ve created a number of placemarks, you will want to move them into a folder so you can easily export the entire collection or create a tour.

To create a folder, go to the “Add” menu and select “Folder.” This will add a new folder to the Places sidebar. Note, that if a folder is currently highlighted, when you add a new folder it will actually create a sub-folder underneath the selected one.

You can easily rearrange placemarks and even other folders into your new folder by dragging-and-dropping items.

Step 5 - Export a KMZ

Once you’re happy with a collection of placemarks, you can export it. To do so, click on the folder of items you’d like to export and go to the “File” menu and select “Save” > “Save Place As…” (You can also right-click on the folder to find this option.)

This will bring up a dialog box that will allow you to save the file to your computer.

If you have included pictures from your computer in your placemark descriptions (as opposed to those from the web) you will want to make sure to select the KMZ file format. Google Earth will automatically include those pictures in the saved file so you can easily share them.

Step 6 - Play a tour

Once you have a collection of placemarks, you can create an automated tour of them. To start a tour, click on the folder you wish to tour in the Places sidebar, and then click the Play Tour icon in the lower right. This will loop through all the placemarks in the current folder, zooming into the “view” perspective you set for each.

You can change the default tour settings, like the amount of time between placemarks, by editing Google Earth’s preferences.

Step 7 - Create a Tour with Narration

You can also create a narrated tour, which is perfect for showcasing your work.

To create a tour, go to the “Add” menu and select “Tour.” This will bring up the tour recorder interface.

To start recording, click on the record button. This will record all of your Google Earth actions, including zooming, panning around turning layers on and off, and opening and closing dialog windows. A great way to prepare for recording a tour, is to setup your placemarks in the right order so all you have to do is double-click on them to zoom into each one.

To record a voice-over as you go through your tour, click on the microphone button.

When you are finished, click on the record button again to stop. This will bring up the tour review interface.

Here you can click the play button to playback your tour. You can also drag the slider left and right to review your tour quickly.

When you are happy with the results, be sure to click the save button (the disk icon) which will save your tour as a new item in the Places sidebar. You can export this file the same way you export folders or individual placemarks (see above).

HTML Cheat sheet

The following HTML snippets are a great way to add some formatting to your dialogue box.

<strong>To bold text, put it in-between these tags</strong>

<em>This will italicize text</em>

To add an image, use the following format: <img src=” width=”300” align=”right” border=”1”> Note that only the “src” option is required, the rest are optional.

And to make a link use the following format: <a href=” text will be linked</a>

The description box is pretty flexible and allows for most html formatting codes (i.e. tables). So feel free to go further if you like.

The best way to learn is to look at the KML files other people have posted and look at what is in their description boxes when you are in the edit view.

Additional Resources

GE Education Community

How to Teach with Google Earth

Spreadsheet Mapper

How to create a narrated tour

Online KML Overlay Map Generator

Convert your GPS data for use in Google Earth

Revised August 10, 2010

Sage Lichtenwalner, COSEE NOW