Introduction to Google Earth for

Middle and High School

Google Earth and Remote Sensing

First, let’s see some terminologies:

Image – an image is a representation of reality. It can be

a sketch, a painting, a photograph, or some other

graphic representation such as satellite data. Satellites

capture and store electromagnetic waves that are

reflected or emitted from features on the Earth,

somewhat like a camera.

Remote Sensing – remote sensing can be defined as the

scientific and technical discipline that involves acquiring

information of various Earth features from a distance.

Sometime the distance is great, such as satellite-based

remote sensing where the satellites are in orbit high

above the Earth; other times the distance is much less,

such as aircraft-based remote sensing where the

airplane is much closer to Earth.

Geographic Information System (GIS) – GIS can defined

as the technical discipline that uses computer-based

(digital) geospatial data to map and model geographic

information. Geographic Information Systems are

composed of computer hardware, software, geospatial

data (which we’ll define shortly, so don’t worry), and a

person to operate the system.

Geospatial Data – data that has geographic location

information associated with it.

Learning Objectives: Upon successful completion of

this lab, students will be able to:

• Navigate around the world using Google Earth

• Define Remote Sensing and GIS

• Understand the basics of digital geospatial

data

Materials needed: Windows or Mac computer with

internet connection and Google Earth

Note: Version 6.1 was used in this lesson

Starting Google Earth

1. Start Google Earth by double-

clicking the Google Earth Icon in the

Zenworks window found on the

desktop. This will start the program.

2. Close the Start-up Tips window, if appears.

Q-1. How many menus do you see in the

menu bar?

Exaggerating the terrain relief

Without exaggeration, the terrain relief would be too

small to be seen when a large area is displayed. For

example, Mount Everest will be only a couple

millimeters high on a 2m-diameter globe.

3. Click on the “Tools” menu and choose the “Options

...” submenu.

Q-2. How many tabs do you see in the Google

Earth Options window?

4. In the “3D View” tab, set the Elevation

Exaggeration to 3 as shown below.

This setting will make the height of each surface

appear 3 times higher than it really is.

5. If “Degrees, Minutes, Seconds” is not selected,

select it. Then, click OK.

Basic navigation in Google Earth

6. Locate the cursor on the globe. Check what

happens when you pull or push the middle mouse

wheel.

Q-3. What happens when you push the

middle mouse wheel?

7. Press and hold the Control key (“Ctrl”) and push or

pull the middle mouse wheel.

Q-4. What does it do? (Choose one from

zoom, pan, rotate and tilt).

8. Press and hold the Shift key (“Shift”) and push or

pull the middle mouse wheel.

Q-5. What does it do? (Choose one from

zoom, pan, rotate and tilt).

9. Drag the mouse with the left mouse key pressed.

Q-6. What does it do? (Choose one from

zoom, pan, rotate and tilt).

10. Caution: You need to do this step carefully and

slowly. Drag the mouse with the right mouse key

pressed.

Q-7. What does it do when you drag it up and

down? (Choose one from zoom, pan, rotate

and tilt).

Q-8. What does it do when you drag it left

and right? (Choose one from zoom, pan,

rotate and tilt).

Note: If necessary, you may reset the rotation and tilt

by following this sequence of steps in the toolbar:

View � Reset � Tilt and Compass menus.

Navigating to your house

11. Navigate to your house using the navigation tools

that you learned in Steps 6-10.

Marking your house

12. With your house

displayed, click the

Add Place Mark tool.

A large yellow marker (i.e. a pushpin) will

appear with the New Placemark window.

13. Move the placemark to your house with the left-

click and drag.

14. In the New Placemark window, change “Untitled

Placemark” to “My House”.

You can add a description of your house in the

Description box. You can also change the color and type

of Placemark, as well as the View and Altitude of the

Placemark.

15. Click OK.

Retrieving object attributes

You can retrieve the attributes of an object like the

placemark at any time. Use the right-click on the marker

and choose “Properties”.

16. Right-click on the placemark that you added.

Q-9. What are the latitude and longitude

coordinates of your house?

Note:

Latitude is the angular distance, in degrees, minutes,

and seconds of a point north or south of the Equator.

Lines of latitude (shown as a horizontal line) are often

referred to as parallels.

Longitude is the angular distance, in degrees, minutes,

and seconds, of a point east or west of the Prime

(Greenwich) Meridian. Lines of longitude (shown as a

vertical line) are often referred to as meridians.

Hemispheres of the Earth in geography refer to the

division of the globe.

The equator divides the planet into the Northern and

Southern Hemispheres. The Prime Meridian at zero

degrees longitude and the line of longitude opposite the

Prime Meridian (near the International Date Line) at 180

degrees longitude divide the Earth into the Eastern and

Western Hemispheres.

Q-10. Which hemispheres is your house located

in? How did you know it?

17. Close the Placemark window.

Layers

Many geographic datasets are organized as layers. A

layer is a collection

of specific

elements, such as

trees, roads,

buildings that can

be viewed together

with other layers

for a complete

overview of the

area, or separately

to give a more specific indication of the presence of that

particular element.

18. Zoom out a little bit and display some counties

including York County.

19. Toggle (i.e. check or unchek) the Borders and Labels

layer.

You will see

that the

county

boundaries

appear or

disappear.

20. Zoom in a little bit to show downtown York City and

the surrounding areas.

21. At the lower left corner, expand the More layer box

by clicking the white triangle.

More layers will appear.

22. Scroll down to the bottom and expand the US

Government layer.

23. Check the City Boundaries layer.

24. Uncheck the City Boundaries layer.

Examining the land cover change over time

Land cover changes can be easily monitored visually by

examining historical images.

Move your mouse towards the eastern side of the map

and then click and drag the image over towards the left

and down a bit so that you can see the East York area in

the center of the view like this.

25. Click the Show Historical Image tool.

A Time Option dialog bar will appear.

(Time Option dialog bar in Google Earth)

26. Slide the pointer left or right and review different

images.

Locate Rt 30, it’s the major highway which should near

the middle of your image. Once you have found Rt 30

zoom in on the York Galleria Mall area which is directly

north of Rt. 30. Use this picture as your guide.

Q-11. You might recognize the area in the red box as the

Target and Kohls building of the York Galleria Mall,

officially known of as York Galleria West. Slide the

historical image bar to determine what year this area

was developed.

27. Slide the Time Option

pointer to the right end.

28. Close the Time Option

dialog by clicking “X” in the

window.

Measuring land use and land cover

Land use refers to how land is used by humans. It refers

to the economic use to which land is put. For example is

the land being used for commercial purposes (stores,

office buildings, apartments, etc.) or for industrial

purposes (factories, assembly plants)? Or is the land

being used for recreational or agricultural purposes?

On the other hand, Land Cover refers to the vegetation,

structures, or other features that cover the land. For

example, is the land covered by grass, by trees, by

water, or by large buildings surrounded by a lawn?

Two land parcels may have similar land cover, but

different land use. For instance, an industrial plant that

assembles electronic components may look, from the

outside, very much like an office building with a

distribution warehouse. The first is an example of

industrial use, the latter an example of commercial use.

29. From the York Galleria Mall view, zoom out to

change your view so that shows most of the East York,

Stonybrook, and Springetts Manor area as shown on the

next page.

The area shows commercial/industrial land use,

residential land use, and natural land cover. Let’s

measure their percent values.

30. First, we need to change the measurement units.

Follow, Tools Options menus and choose Feet, Miles

as the units of measurement.

31. Click OK.

32. Skipped

33. First, we will calculate the

window area. Click the Ruler

tool.

A Ruler dialog box will appear.

34. Change the unit to miles.

35. Measure the width and height of your map display

area. You will need to click at the beginning and at the

end.

The distance will appear in the dialog box. Mine shows

3.3 miles wide, for example. Yours should be different.

Q-12. What are width and height of your display area?

Width: ________________

Height: ________________

Multiply width and height to calculate the area.

Area: __________________

Note: Use the calculator available at Start All

Programs Accessories Calculator.

36. Close the ruler dialog

window.

37. Click the Add Polygon tool.

38. Type “Residential” as the name.

39. Click the “Style, Color” tab, and change the line

color to red, width to 2.0 and area as “Outlined”.

40.

Draw a polygon as shown below. Note: You don’t need

to be super accurate.

Note: If you make a mistake, click Cancel in the dialog

box and start it over.

41. Click OK.

42. Click the Add Polygon tool again.

43. Type Commercial and Industrial” as the name.

44. Click the “Style, Color” tab, and change the line

color to a bright green color.

45. Sketch the commercial and industrial area as shown

below.

Note: Make one click at a time. Again, you don’t need to

be very accurate. If you make a mistake, start it over.

46. Click OK.

Measuring Area

The old version Google Earth provided a free area

measuring tool, but it is not available with the updated

versions. We will use a website to do the area

calculation.

47. Open an Internet browser and go to:

http://www.earthpoint.us/Shapes.aspx.

48. Go back to Google Earth, and right-click on the edge

of the residential polygon. Then, choose “Copy.”

49. Go back to the internet browser, and right-click on

the white box in the middle. Choose “Paste.”

Coordinates will be pasted into the dialog box.

50. Choose square miles as the output options for Area.

51. Scroll to the bottom and

click the View on Web Page

button.

Q-13. What is the size of the residential area?

52. Scroll up the internet browser and find the box that

you pasted the coordinates. Click once inside the box.

Any location is fine.

53. Press and hold the Control key (“Ctrl”) and hit the

“A” key. The pasted contents will be selected.

54.

Hit the delete key (“Del”).

55. Now, go back to Google Earth.

56. Right-click on the edge of the “Commercial and

Industrial” polygon, then choose “Copy”.

57. Go to the internet browser, and right-click on the

white box in the middle. Choose “Paste.”

58. Scroll to the bottom and click the View on Web Page

button.

Q-14. What is the size of

the Commercial and Industrial area?

59. Supposing that the other areas than

Commercial/Industrial and Residential areas are the

Natural Land Cover, you can calculate the percent

values of the land use/cover types as follows.

A = Total study area size from Step 3

B = Residential area size from Step 51

C = Commercial/Industrial from Step 58

Then, Natural land cover area (D) = A – B – C

Percent Residential = B/A x 100

Percent Com./Ind. = C/A x 100

Percent Nat’l Land Cover = D/A x 100

Q-15. What are the land use/cover percent values.

60. Close Google Earth and the Internet browser.