Website(s) of the Week: Two Earths

Another Earth – Compare two Earths over time
GE Teach – Look beyond your borders

Both of these sites use the Google Earth plugin to give viewers a unique perspective of our planet and the wealth of information we’ve collected about it over time. Each site allows you to put TWO Google Earths side-by-side in order to compare and contrast data. Another Earth focuses on comparisons over time (between the years 1937 and 2012) while GE Teach focuses on comparing different types of data layers, such as climate change and sea temperature. Both sites are “under development” and glitches may pop up from time to time, but the authors readily ask for feedback from users so that they can make improvements.

For more information, I recommend checking out Richard Byrne’s review of both sites (GE Teach / Another Earth).

INTEGRATE:

• There is great potential for any compare-and-contrast exercise with these two sites. I can see many class and/or small group discussions that could be setup using these web tools.
• For Another Earth, if you wanted to compare Earth of today with Earth from a time before 1937 then perhpas students could use their imaginations to visualize what the Google Earth image would look like. Then, have students sketch that image by hand or with digital drawing tools such as Google SketchUp or Scriblink.
• For GE Teach, have students reflect on the accessibility this tool provides vs. that found in textbooks and atlas books.

Another Earth…
GE Teach…