Nasa’s World Wind and Environmental Education
// October 16th, 2007 // Comments Off // Uncategorized
So there has been a lot of buzz about Google Earth and how cool it is and everything. I have certainly downloaded it and did the ritual ‘look up your home, friends’ homes, etc’ and found it really cool if you harness the extendability of it…using xml/kml, shapefiles and such. Although I’m probably a little more savvy than the average ‘end user,’ I still find this stuff time consuming and a little steep on my learning curve. And when I say ’stuff,’ I mean fully customizing Google Earth to show things you normally don’t see and such. I guess what I am getting at is that there is a lot you can do with this program (ie. look at cool landmarks, cities, and addresses of your friends), but ‘out-of-the-box’ it doesn’t seem to do much else. Sure it is pretty snappy/fast, and has a very user friendly interface…good overall….but this post wouldnt be titled with, “World Wind” if I were to talk all about Google Earth, now would it?
So here is “World Wind” – a screenshot (click for large view)
At first glance, it seems ordinary when compared to Google Earth, but what I found really appealing about it is it’s ability to tap into so much data that NASA has in it’s image databases as well as a project I currently am involved with called, “GLOBE” or Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment.
As quoted on their site, GLOBE:
GLOBE (Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment) is a worldwide hands-on, primary and secondary school-based science and education program. GLOBE’s vision promotes and supports students, teachers and scientists to collaborate on inquiry-based investigations of the environment and the Earth system working in close partnership with NASA and NSF Earth System Science Projects (ESSPs) in study and research about the dynamics of Earth’s environment.
This program is AMAZING! With many participating countries and areas of recorded data, this program truely gives a snapshot of our current state of the environment. Twice a week, I take children out to our estuary where we measure different hydrology samples including: dissolved oxygen, salinity, turbidity, pH, along with water temperature, cloud cover. and precipitation. The data we record is then documented on the GLOBE website, where you can view in many different views the changes over time. Well, World Wind lets you tap into that data and visualize it on the global map….the inner geek in me is still screaming with excitment at that fact. The potential for this is really limitless as far as teaching children about how our environment is changing as well as keeping up to date on weather trends, etc. Figuring out how to incorporate this program into my classes is going to be hard, but if done right….it can be a powerful teaching tool (World Wind).
There are many others features of this program that I don’t really want to get into right now, but you can look at agricultural data, human impact, and even look at venus, mars and the moon!
check out “World Wind”
