Geographical Resource

Google Earth has to be my favourite interactive map website.  I showed my gr. 2 students Google Earth a few years ago and they nearly fell off their chairs! The fun part is that through Google Maps you can see in great detail a given street or even house.  I typed in the addresses of those who know their address and we could easily get a street view of their home.  Some boys were talking about Google Earth for days afterwards. It was great seeing the kids so excited about maps!  Of course seeing anything in 3D is always more fun!

When analyzing this site I had the chance to check out the different tabs and features.  Not only can you view earth but also the sky and some planets!  The thing that I liked the most about this site is that it’s so easy to use.  I was looking at other interactive map sites and they could be quite confusing and complicated.  Of course, those sites did offer more map-like features but for young children Google Earth is very user-friendly.  Google Earth provides a great introduction to exploring maps and the earth in general.  I particularly think this is a great site for primary and early intermediate grades.  When teaching, if I couldn’t get my hands on a globe I used Google Earth.  I wouldn’t however recommend this site for high school students working on advance mapping skills.  Google seems to be very reliable and the site is up-to-date. 

The second site I checked out was the Atlas of Canada site.  I quite liked this site.  There are many different maps to choose from and there are even short explanations about each map.  It is not the most user-friendly but it has the necessary features that a good map should have and the maps should be accurate given the source.  I was really amazed by all the different types of maps there are, for example: Highest Level of Education Attainment or Marital Status, Health Behaviours etc.  The most recent were from 2006 but once the census is done hopefully some of these maps will be updated.  The map archive section is also quite interesting, the maps go back as far as 1906.  I see this site as being more of a teacher resource than one for students.  This site would be more appropriate for late intermediate to high school.  The big downside to this site is that many of the maps are quite out-dated. 

Overall I've discovered that different kinds of sites have different purposes.  It's important to have a variety of geographical resources since it can be quite a broad category.  Often times people just think of geography as maps- country names and capitals.  There needs to be also some historical, physical, cultural and economic geography reference materials.   I have a feeling that finding the appropriate resource for all students may prove to be quite difficult!