The Geodata portal at King's College in London is a fantastic collection of geospatial applications that can be visualized and downloaded through a Google Earth or Google Maps interface. Region-based network links are used which allow you to zoom into areas of interest to visualise the data. Links are also provided for downloading the raw data in simple formats for use in GIS or remote sensing systems. This is a fantastic resource for the classroom. I spent some time this morning taking a closer look at four of the data sets provided:
NASA Blue Marble, is a natural color mosaic. These data sets show land surface and snow dynamics on the basis of monthly composites of imagery for 2004.
Terrascope, a Google Earth implementation of the LANDSAT MSS, TM and ETM+ ortho mosaics for the 1970s, circa 1990 and circa 2000. It is designed to allow rapid comparison of LANDSAT imagery between these periods for any view in Google Earth. This data sets also includes "a geowiki so that users can move or add information and comments to existing features as well as add new points to the database or comments on visible imagery overlays. All entries are immediately added to the database and visible to all users. Increased functionality (history, edit, delete and classify will be added to the geowiki in due course)"
Amazon-eye, a collection of easily browsable data and imagery on recent environmental change in the Amazon basin as a freely available information source for scientific and conservation users.
Sea level rise scenarios, looks at possible changes to coastlines based on the following sea level changes: Choose the radio buttons to also show modelled new coastlines at the following sea levels:
• -120m - sea levels during the last glacial maximum (approx, 18,000 years ago). • +0m • +1m • +4m
Blue Marble Data in Google Earth
By way of the Ogle Earth
JotForm JotForm is a web based WYSIWYG AJAXy form builder. Its drag and drop user interface makes form building easy. Using JotForm, you can create forms, integrate them to your site and collect submissions from your visitors. Examples include...
The word count feature in Google Docs displays not only word, character, paragraph, and sentence counts, but now also readability estimates.
Business Week has an article about Google Apps and reports that Google is preparing a Google Apps version of YouTube to create videos for training and employee communications. I hope this comes to the Apps version for education. We could post our student video projects and such without fear of being blocked by the district filter. by way of Mashable...
The Google Earth Blog reports that the NASA layer in Google Earth has been updated and now includes an Earth at Night image overlay for the entire Earth. I've seen maps like this before but to see it overlayed in Google Earth brings a whole new perspective to the experience. Look for it in the Featured Content area of the Layers panel.
Chris O'Sullivan has created a Rails application (Display KML on a Map) that let's you quickly test KML code directly in Google Maps. While Google Maps will display KML files, the KML file first has to be saved someplace. This method allows you to copy and paste the KML code into a text field and then display the KML information within Google Maps. You then need to zoom the map in manually to display the KML information. This is nice for testing and saves time since you don't have to first upload the KML file in order to see how it looks in Google Maps... By way of OgleEarth
BookTour is a service that connects authors and potential audiences. Authors can create a page and folks looking for an author to speak to a group or gathering can contact the author and facilitate the connection. You can also search for scheduled book tour events and see when your favorite author will be visiting your city.