A Teaching Idea: Using Google Maps in SS 30

Google Maps is a rich resource for teaching Social Studies at a wide range of grade levels, but in this Tech Tip we are going to focus on Social Studies 30.  

Let's presume that we want our class to explore legislative buildings and famous Canadian landmarks.  There are a number of ways we can employ Google Maps for this purpose.  Here is one procedure for doing so.  It has the added bonus of refreshing students' understanding of longitude and latitude.


Preparation:

• If you do not already have one, create a Gmail/Google account
• While logged on to Gmail, go to Google Maps
• Create a map within "my maps."
• On this map, mark the various locations you would like your students to explore.
• As you mark each location, right-click on your marker and select "directions from here" or "directions to here"
• When you do this, you will be taken to a form which includes the longitude and latitude of the marker; copy this into a Google Doc, like this one.  (Click here for the solutions to this Google Doc.)
• Publish this Google Doc as a web page so that students can access it.  (Note: a Google Doc is preferable to a print, hard copy because students can cut and paste the lengthy coordinates rather than typing them.)
• Have students copy the contents of your published Google Doc into their own Google Doc so that they can edit it.
• Note:  If you chose to share your document with your students (presumes that the students have Gmail/Google accounts, we would suggest doing so in a spreadsheet rather than a text document, since spreadsheets have much higher limits on the number of simultaneous users.

Execution:  Where you take this will depend on the kinds of information that you want students to gather, but here are some possibilities.

• Have students navigate Google Maps using satellite view.
• If you are trying to teach/review longitude and latitude, you might first ask students to look up the second legislative location (in the document I've shared).  Once they've determined that it's Saskatchewan's own legislature, you can ask them to make logical predications about some of the other legislatures.  At the very least, they should be able to guess the legislatures of B.C., Alberta, and Manitoba from the longitudes.
• You can also ask them questions like, "Which legislatures could possibly be south of the 49th parallel?"
• In addition to identifying each location, from within Google Maps, under the "more" menu, students can also activate other features, including:
• Panoramio photos
• Wikipedia entries for the location
• Youtube videos of the location
• Live webcams in the vicinity
• Google Streetview ground-level walk-throughs of the location

Google Streetview is a particularly interesting technology, as it allows students to visit Canadian landmarks in a much more realistic way.  For example, students who have never been through the Crowsnest Pass can view Frank Slide from ground level just as if they were there.

I'm sure that once teachers have familiarized themselves with Google Maps, they will find many other useful applications for the classroom.  For example, a grade 5 student studying longitude and latitude can find his own home on Google Maps and determine its longitude and latitude.  Then each student can share his/her location on a Google Doc and proceed to mark the locations of their classmates' homes, using the shared coordinates.  This has the advantage of "bringing home" the concepts of longitude and latitude.