A few of us in the lab tested out Google Earth yesterday by locating hometowns and cities. We looked for Mauritius, Kluang, Kuala Lumpur, Kuantan, Paris, New York, Rome, Ladakh, Beijing, Tokyo, Singapore and lots more. Although we couldn't locate some lesser-known places and most locations couldn't be zoomed into much, everyone was pretty amazed by it. Ken wished the images were real-time (he was looking at boats in Wallabout Bay, New York) whereas Ryan wished he had this tool when he was back in school. Yeah, it would have made geography, history and culture so much more fun!
I recreated some maps of European cities visited last summer using Google Earth, albeit not all of them since the 3D terrains for some locations are somewhat limited. Really liked the aerial view of the cities which gave a different perspective than as seen from ground level walking- Barcelona has neat organized blocks like a graph paper or mosaic tiles whereas Paris appears very disorganized and spirals whimsically outwards from the banks of the Seine. I am so pleased...
Barcelona, Spain
Paris, France
Rome, Italy
Vatican City
I recreated some maps of European cities visited last summer using Google Earth, albeit not all of them since the 3D terrains for some locations are somewhat limited. Really liked the aerial view of the cities which gave a different perspective than as seen from ground level walking- Barcelona has neat organized blocks like a graph paper or mosaic tiles whereas Paris appears very disorganized and spirals whimsically outwards from the banks of the Seine. I am so pleased...
Barcelona, Spain
Paris, France
Rome, Italy
Vatican City
Yup I agree... every kid should be given Google Earth instead of just a book. 2-D maps just don't cut it when u can just roll the globe over and find the US roughly on the other side of the world from China. Not just US on the left side and Japan on the right!
Plus it makes us non-astronauts feel like Yuri Gagarin... it awes me endlessly seeing how large New York and Tokyo are.
One thing eh could astronauts have been pulling our legs? The Great Wall of China is supposed to be visible from space but I can't find it anywhere :p
Yeah, we tried locating the Great Wall of China based on that supposed fact too but can't seem to locate it! Instead, the Forbidden City in Beijing was easily identified. Not sure if it's a myth or perhaps a software limitation :)