Google Maps gets Contour Lines!!!!!
May 2nd, 2008 Posted in Activboard, Classroom Ideas, Google, Mark Robinson, Secondary EducationNot content with the powerful combination of maps and aerial images - Google have now added contour line data for many parts of the world!
The new “terrain” options combine with the other established features to offer an amazing toolkit for teaching with your Activboard.
You will find it as a button at the top right of a map.
Google terrain map of the Matterhorn in Switzerland
Click this link to get a map of Sagarmatha in Nepal (Mount Everest)… How high is it?
Some ideas…
- Combine Google Maps with the Activ software “overlay” tools to trace a specific countour line
- Work out routes through the mountains and calculate heights gained and lost
- When you have found a location you can use the “link to this page” function of Google maps to add it to a flipchart so that it can be shared with students.
- Combine your own or the students custome images and annotations on Google maps with height data - perhaps as part of a study into the effects of altitude on vegetation.
One of my favourites is to:
- Plan a reservoir!
2 Responses to “Google Maps gets Contour Lines!!!!!”
By Jon' Allen on May 6, 2008
Great to see this as a freebie with Google Maps - very useful when doing mapwork. Doesn’t seem to have a fly by function or change angle of view from directly above, which you can get with Google Earth.
A personal favorite is Memory Map which does cost but allows the above and has a slider which exaggerates the contour distances so that small diferences in height can be made Alpine - really good for explaining the Lynton and Lymouth flood disaster in the 1950s and the more recent Boscastle flood in Cornwall. It was a miracle nobody lost their lives, but had it happpened at night… There’s a lovely tale from the lifeboat that came to help and was met by a ghostly procession of half submerged cars proceeding out to sea with alarms, headlights, wiper etc all going - and luckily no occupants.
By Jon' Allen on May 6, 2008
PS Mark - bit worried about the reservoir planning. We’re off to Grassmere for a summer break and it looks like the holiday cottage we are renting is 40′ under water.