One of the biggest challenges involved in teaching geography to seventh graders is how to make maps and concepts in geography real.  Students often don’t make the leap from a map to conditions on the ground and what it might be like to actually live there.  One new tool that is available today is Google Earth software.  By using satellite imagery, this software captures the surface of the planet and makes it available to students to explore.  In this way, geographical features like the Sahara Desert become more than just a label on the map.  The Sahara becomes a sea of empty sand that can be seen as it is.  Cities become more than just dots on a map – they become collections of buildings, roads, and scenery.

Different building materials, landscapes, groundcover, and even famous structures come alive for students as they fly over them and view them in amazing detail.  Students can even examine pictures of cities, monuments, or the landscape, posted by users around the world.  Through the use of Google Earth software, students can, and have, explored the geography of our planet as they never have before.  By making geography real, students have begun to better understand the connections between where we live and how we live.  Students on the Synergy Team utilized this software to better develop their understanding of the world’s geography and how geography affects life on our planet.

David Cornwell

RMS Synergy Social Studies Teacher