EdTech 541, Week 11: Google Earth Activity
The CIA in the 20th century: US interventions throughout the world.
Assignment: As a follow-up to your primary source research project, you will recreate your CIA covert operation timeline as a Google Earth tour. You should already have completed a graphic timeline summarizing all declassified CIA covert operations in the 20th century including a photograph and 30+ word summary for each event.
Colorado Social Studies Content Standards:
1. Identifying historical contexts of contemporary issues;
2. Using historical information to interpret and evaluate decisions or policies regarding contemporary issues.
3. Explaining how the foreign policy of the United States and other nations continues to develop and change.
Please watch this video tutorial on how to add comments and photographs to a Google Earth tour.
You should follow these steps to complete this project:
- Download the Google Earth application from http://earth.google.com/, install, and run.
- Click File > Save > Save My Places (you will not be able to create a new ‘My Places’ folder until you do this).
- In the left sidebar, click My Places, then click Add > Folder. Name your folder ‘CIA Covert Ops’. For description, please include your first and last name and the class title and period.
- Find the Search field in the left sidebar (you may need to expand it by clicking the small arrow) and type in the location of your first CIA covert operation.
- The location you typed will appear under the search field. Ensure that this is the correct spot and then click and drag the location from the search area to the CIA covert operations folder that you created earlier.
- Under My Places > CIA Covert Ops you should now see your first location listed. Right-click on the location name and choose Properties (Windows) or Get Info (Mac).
- In the Description field, do the following:
- Type <img src=“URL of image that relates to this location” align=”left” width=”200”>. You will need to be prepared with the URL of the image that relates to this location. If you’re not sure what this is, find the image online, right-click on it, and choose Copy Image URL. Then go back to Google Earth and paste this text between the source quotes.
- Copy and paste the 30+ word summary for that location from your timeline. If you want to preserve paragraph breaks in your text, type <p> where you want the break to occur.
- Click on the location name in the left sidebar to see how the description is displayed.
- Repeat this process until your CIA covert operations folder contains every event location and description. Sort the list chronologically by dragging items up or down.
- To save your project, right-click on the folder name ‘CIA Covert Ops’ and choose Save Place As. Specify a location to save the Google Docs .kmz file containing your locations and descriptions. Now that you have your file stored offline, you can share it via email attachment. Alternatively, you can right-click on the folder name and choose Email.
- I have created a sample .kmz file for your reference. You can download it here or use the link at the bottom of this page. Your will need to have Google Earth installed on your computer to open this file.
Google Earth Resources:
Google Earth Student User’s Guide: http://serc.carleton.edu/sp/library/google_earth/UserGuide.html
Google Earth User Guide: Introduction
Google Earth User Guide: Getting to Know Google Earth
Google Earth User Guide: Navigating in Google Earth
Google Earth User Guide: Finding Places and Directions
Google Earth User Guide: Using Layers
Google Earth User Guide: Measuring Distances and Areas
Google Earth User Guide: Viewing a Timeline
Optional Google Earth Activity: Energy Consumption Rates across the USA and the World.
Note: This activity does not align specifically with the unit theme, but understanding energy consumption rates throughout the world is good background knowledge for travelers.