MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE: CREATING AN OCEANOGRAPHIC GOOGLE EARTH TOUR USING SPREADSHEET MAPPER
Open Access
- Author:
- Hartline, Jonathan D
- Area of Honors:
- Elective Area of Honors - Environmental Inquiry (University College)
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Laura Guertin, Thesis Supervisor
Laura Guertin, Thesis Supervisor
Laura Guertin, Thesis Honors Advisor
Nannette M D'imperio, Faculty Reader - Keywords:
- physical oceanography
Google Earth
Spreadsheet Mapper
KML
environmental inquiry
choose your own adventure - Abstract:
- Google Earth is free, downloadable software offered by Google that allows people to explore the Earth through satellite imagery. In recent years, Google Earth has been used as a technological tool to teach students in the classroom about varying topics from geography to literature. Google Earth Outreach, Google’s program which supports non-profit organizations, has released Spreadsheet Mapper, a Google spreadsheet which can be used to create and compile more complex Google Earth tours. Four of Spreadsheet Mapper’s default templates were modified to suit the needs of a “choose your own adventure” style oceanographic tour which teaches users about surface ocean currents. The tour follows a branched structure in which the user chooses one of four ocean basins to explore: North Atlantic, South Atlantic, North Pacific, and South Pacific. Each basin starts with the scenario of throwing a bottle with a message inside into the ocean and tracing its journey through the four major basin-specific surface ocean currents. At the end of each tour is a video which shows users how the bottle traveled on the ocean currents. After each video, the user is given the option to restart the current tour, go back to select another ocean basin, watch the video again, or end the tour. Additional uses for Google Earth and Spreadsheet Mapper to raise awareness of environmental issues are suggested.