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More ways to teach math with Google Earth

Last year we showed you a great article from Katrina Schwartz about how you can use Google Earth to teach math.  A recent article on Techno-Rebel posted a similar idea, but from a slightly different angle.  Instead of fairly complex questions like Katrina shared (“map the 22 Iditarod checkpoints and had students calculate the time it takes their mush team to get to each stop”), the ones on Techno-Rebel are aimed at a younger audience.  For example, one is “If Disneyland were a clock, what shape would you see at 5:00?”:

disney

To take it further, they’ve created a short video that shows more examples:

The video includes a handful of neat ideas to help make learning more interactive.  Check out their full article to see more.

Using Google Earth to teach math

real-world-mathA common refrain for students in a math class is “when are we ever gonna need this?” Real World Math is a site that tries to put math skills into real-world situations to help them feel more useful to the students. Their tool of choice? Google Earth!

Thomas Petra created the site, aimed at 5th-10th grade students, to show them why math matters in the real world.  Katrina Schwartz at Mind/Shift recently wrote a great article about Real World Math, explaining why it can be such a useful tool.

Petra takes an inquiry learning approach to the Google Earth-based problems. “I want them to use the things they know already and I want them to learn new skills like critical thinking and problem solving on their own terms,” Petra said of his approach. To do that, Petra has developed more than 30 elaborate souped-up word problems based on downloadable Google Earth maps with additional information embedded at different points.

While much of the Real World Math site is password-protected, I encourage you to check it out to see what they have to offer.  You can also read the full article on Mind/Shift to learn more about them.