National Geographic Supports Geography Awareness Week

The third week in November is Geography Awareness Week (since Ronald Reagan signed legislation in 1987). Each year since then National Geographic Society has sponsored programs to help educate kids about geography. National Geographic also leads an effort called My Wonderful World to try and expand geographic learning in schools.

Google Earth Quiz Feature

Last week, My Wonderful World published a really cool series of tours for the continent of Asia using Google Earth. Most of the tours guide you with a series of placemarks to learn about different areas of Asia. But, my favorite is the orientation quiz . This uses some very cool new features in the latest KML 2.2 to allow you to have an interactive quiz in Google Earth. You answer a multiple choice question inside a placemark, and it tells you if you are right or wrong depending on which answer you select. This gives you a much more interactive educational feel to Google Earth. Amazing!
[UPDATE 1300: Looks like I’m not the only one to take note of this story – Google just posted a write-up about the quiz and other layers from National Geographic. And, they’ve posted a special page highlighting Geography Awareness Week content.]

About Frank Taylor

Frank Taylor started the Google Earth Blog in July, 2005 shortly after Google Earth was first released. He has worked with 3D computer graphics and VR for many years and was very impressed with this exciting product. Frank completed a 5.5 year circumnavigation of the earth by sailboat in June 2015 which you can read about at Tahina Expedition, and is a licensed pilot, backpacker, diver, and photographer.

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