When I was going to school, geography meant learning about far away countries, looking at maps, and memorizing capitols, landmarks, and mountain ranges. Things haven’t changed all that much in the years since I was in school, but the tools used to teach them have. The advances in photography, mixed with the results of our manned and unmanned space program, have made it possible to explore distant lands from the comfort of your own keyboard. Today we look at a site that I discovered that is a real treat for all students.

Google Earth is brought to you by the same people who provide the search engine of the same name. I found out about this site while I was in a training course, and one of the students was from New Zealand. He showed me this program, and how he used it to find his way to the training center where we were. Google Earth combines satellite imagery, maps, and the power of Google Search to put the world’s geographic information at your fingertips.

Google Earth puts a planet’s worth of imagery and other geographic information right on your desktop. View exotic locales like Maui and Paris as well as points of interest such as local restaurants, hospitals, schools, and more…

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