Teaching Earth Sciences - Earth Science Teachers' Association

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Climate change and sustainable development education through the lens of Google Earth Matthew Chilcott and Simon K. Haslett Abstract Climate change impacts and sustainable development issues span many spaces and scales, from individual homes through to local communities, regions, nations and beyond, but requiring of students to appreciate these diverse contexts is challenging. Google Earth is a software package that may be downloaded free of charge from the internet and provides continuous global satellite imagery. It has the potential to offer opportunities for educators to embed world sustainability themes within the curricula of almost any subject. The Sands of Time – A Google Earth Approach to Climate Change Education e-publication provides a case study that employs Google Earth in examining climate change impacts and sustainable development issues in North Africa. This article shows how educators can make use of the same tool in engaging students with digital technology in climate change and sustainable development education. Introduction Google Earth offers educators and the public a new and engaging method of exploring and learning about the World. It is a virtual globe, map and a Geographical Information System (GIS). It maps the earth by the superimposition of images obtained from satellite imagery, aerial photography and GIS 3D globe. It has proved popular as a tool, with its easy to use simple navigation features, and the ability to integrate other forms of internet published content such as photographs from Panoramio and video sequences from Youtube. As a consequence of its widespread use, Google Earth offers the opportunity for knowledge transfer and inclusion of the World’s community in exploring climate change through a visually stimulating and interactive medium. The potential for its use across curriculum areas may yet to be fully utilised and as educators seek engaging ways of offering students increased levels of technology enhanced learning it is possible to predict its increasing use across disciplines. Academic research that employs Google Earth spans a number of disciplines, including archaeology, biodiversity, earth sciences, geography, health, planning, tourism, urban development and water technology. Although Google Earth launched its Outreach programme in 2007, its use in Higher Education (HE) as a learning resource to support global issues education has not been extensively documented in the literature, but is beginning to be evaluated in the earth sciences (e.g. Haslett, 2009a; Thorndycraft et al., 2009). The functionality of Google Earth has enabled the development of large budget digital media productions that utilise Google Earth’s integrated application layers to tell stories and reveal the human impact on the landscape. These developments help contextualize climate change issues for global audiences and seek to widen access and participation of the world’s citizens in contributing to reducing carbon emissions. These are excellent resources that seek to engage with a broad breadth of users and delivery contexts from the public, policy makers, scientists to the classroom. Arguably, however, the broad approach these take loose a sense of the ‘local’ case study that contextualizes climate change impact on place and time in many traditional educational contexts. Against this backdrop it remains highly pertinent for other educators to use Google Earth to raise awareness of climate change impacts in location specific contexts. This is particularly evident when considering arid and desert climates where the impact of climate change can be tracked and investigated using the core satellite image data in Google Earth. For example, the use of Google Earth in sustainable development in business and industry is beginning to gather pace. Indeed, the Google Earth website highlights the growing application of the technology to industry and business, with relevance to employment areas in commercial and residential real estate, architecture and engineering, insurance, media, public and nongovernmental organizations, national and local government, and defence, security and intelligence. Embedding sustainable development through the use of Google Earth provides an exciting opportunity to raise student awareness in global sustainability issues and exposes them to useful employability skills. 20 Teaching Earth Sciences Vol 35 No 1 2010 www.esta-uk.net
Potential exists to use Google Earth in a virtual learning environment, in a conventional classroom, or laboratory or field setting, whether in supervised groups or self-directed, and may be applied in almost any subject area studied at HE Institutions. At the University of Wales, Newport, we have developed an e-publication entitled The Sands of Time: A Google Earth Approach to Climate Change Education (Haslett & Savage, 2009) that can be argued to have broad relevance. The e-publication clearly has the potential to support student outreach programmes and offcampus activities, such as expeditions and voluntary placements. It is hoped that this research will help to promote Google Earth in the University portfolio of online learning resources in the UK and abroad. The e-publication (Haslett & Savage, 2009) is tailored directly for educators and reports on a sustainable development and climate change case study developed as part of a Higher Education Academy-Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences Subject Centre Funded Project. It includes an introduction to climate change, a detailed case study and an educational exercise all of which are available for free educational use. The publication can be accessed directly from http://idl.newport.ac.uk/celt/sandsoftime. The resource has been produced using the Adobe Flash creative authoring tool and incorporates Digital Earth video sequences created using the Google Earth Pro video capturing tool. This was added to with wider free to use educational contextual video sequences obtained from the Open2.Net creative archive. The publication has been produced with an intuitive design which includes an inbuilt navigation function to enhance accessibility. This enables users of the publication to explore the materials using the arrow keys on computer keyboards in addition to navigating via chapter headings. Google Earth Case Study – Climate Change and North Africa. Haslett & Savage (2009) present a case study of climate change impacts in western North Africa that can be investigated through a blended learning approach using Google Earth. The case study originated from palaeoclimate research undertaken on deep-sea cores collected by the Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) offshore Cap Blanc on the coast of Mauritania (Haslett & Davies, 2006). The data has contributed to the development of a blended learning exercise that attempts to encourage learners to evaluate the past in order to understand the present (Haslett, 2009b). The main conclusion from the palaeoclimatic data is that warmer Atlantic sea-surface temperatures (SSTs) have promoted, in the past, increased North African aridification. Armed with this theory, students are then able to view atmospheric and SST records since the early 20th century and relate this to episodes of North African aridity. Moreover, in relation to Mauritania, students can chart the urban development of Nouakchott, the capital city of Mauritania (located on the coast close to Cap Blanc) (Chenal & Kaufmann, 2008), which itself appears to correspond to local cycles and aridity and, therefore, climate change. Figure 1 Haslett, S.K., Savage, N. (2009) The Sands of Time: A Google Earth Approach to Climate Change Education. Newport: University of Wales. Available from http://idl. newport.ac.uk/celt/sandsoftime/ (accessed 18th December 2009). • Figure 1 is provided with the University of Wales, Newport’s endorsement for use in the publication. www.esta-uk.net Vol 35 No 1 2010 Teaching Earth Sciences 21
Page 1 and 2: Teaching ISSN 0957-8005 Earth Scien
Page 3 and 4: Contents From the Editor Hazel Clar
Page 5 and 6: From the Chair Niki Whitburn Welcom
Page 7 and 8: Fred Broadhurst remembered 5 Februa
Page 9 and 10: Geology and Society - ESTA Annual C
Page 11 and 12: ESTA Conference, Southampton 2009 P
Page 13 and 14: Teaching Ideas from the ‘Bring an
Page 15 and 16: Idea Title: Presenter: Brief descri
Page 21: Sub-surf Rocks! ESTA at Southampton
Page 25 and 26: Conclusion Since the development of
Page 27 and 28: Figure 1 A simple diagram showing t
Page 29 and 30: Figure 3 Predicted annual surface t
Page 31 and 32: emissions in ocean surface waters,
Page 33 and 34: Greenhouse to icehouse: Arctic clim
Page 35 and 36: the results are extremely striking.
Page 37 and 38: experienced by this region have bee
Page 39 and 40: Climate Change . . . Save the Plane
Page 41 and 42: 14-18) from King Edward VI Five Way
Page 43 and 44: Figure 2 The living roof planted wi
Page 45 and 46: Peneplains and plate tectonics Mark
Page 47 and 48: Figure 2 Planation surfaces (penepl
Page 49 and 50: Lidmar-Bergström, K. (1999) Uplift
Page 51 and 52: The formation of Gondwana (and Laur
Page 53 and 54: The fracturing of Gondwana was a pr
Page 55 and 56: Figure 5 Plunge refers to the dip o
Page 57 and 58: The foregoing is a summary of terms
Page 59 and 60: Reviews The Control of Nature John
Page 61 and 62: The starting point of the Deep Time
Page 63 and 64: With an introductory textbook of th
Page 65 and 66: Earth’s Climate provides a multid
Page 67 and 68: Excursion Guide to the Geology of E
Page 69 and 70: Diary March 2010 1st March until 11
Page 71: 9th June Lecture: The Chemistry of

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