27 Ideas For Teaching With Topographic Maps

The USGS has 27 Ideas For Teaching With Topographic Maps.  You can see this by site by clicking here.

USGS Secondary School Resources

The US Geological Survey has a ton of resources available for teachers and students.  Clicking on their Secondary School link they cover such topics as: Biology, Climate Change, Ecosystems, Geography, Map Teaching Resources, Topographic Maps,  Map Tools and Satellite Imagery.  Some of the lesson plans include "27 Ideas for Teaching with Topographic Maps", which can be seen by clicking here.  To see their Seconday School link, click here.

TIME Timelapse powered by Google

On Thursday May 9th, Time, Google, NASA and USGS released Timelapse powered by Google.  You can watch the last 30 years of satellite photography of anywhere on earth.  According to Louis Perrochon,     "We sifted through 2,068,467 images—a total of 909 terabytes of data—to find the highest-quality pixels (e.g., those without clouds), for every year since 1984 and for every spot on Earth. We then compiled these into enormous planetary images, 1.78 terapixels each, one for each year."

They have selected a few very stunning timelapses for you to view by clicking here.  You can move around the world and zoom in anywhere.  This might be an interesting tool in the classroom to look at erosion or climate change.  I have zoomed in on the east side of Windsor, east of the WFCU center.  You will notice a large rectangular green area gets built up over the last 30 years around the Banwell Hill - St. Josephs area as highlighted in the red box below.

If you would like to watch the development of this area click here.  You can zoom out or move anywhere else in the world you would like.  When you are done, if you would like to share the new view, click on the icon that looks like this