Google Earth is a virtual globe browser, arguably the most popular of those available for free on the Internet (NASA's World Wind and ESRI's upcoming ArcGIS Explorer
are competitors). Virtual globes allow users to interactively display
and investigate geographic data (primarily satellite and aerial images
and terrain models, but also 2- and 3-D vector data such as earthquake
locations, water bodies, and buildings). One of the most useful aspects
of Google Earth from a geoscience education point of view is the
availability of a variety of geoscience-related datasets for free on the
web.
Google Earth allows users to perform some basic measurements
(latitude and longitude, elevation, and size), which has led some users
to consider it a variety of GIS software. Geoscience professors should
be careful when making this comparison. Alan Glennon, a graduate student
in geography at UCSB, wrote two essays on the pros and cons
of so-called "naive" GIS (mainly focusing on applications such as
Google Earth). The essays (and the comments on them by other
geographers) are a good starting point if you are trying to decide
whether to use a virtual globe such as Google Earth or a full-featured
GIS such as ArcGIS or GRASS in the classroom. (also see Glenn Richard's Google Earth or GIS? section from the SERC Teaching with Google Earth website.
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