Background
This week in lab we explored Google Earth Tours as a tool to tell a geographic narrative. Google Earth uses GIS technologies to consolidate layers of satellite data and images to encompass the whole globe down to individual structures. Following from our class sourced data from last week’s lab in River View Natural Area, Google Earth allowed us to further explore the connections between canopy cover, tree species, and English ivy in this reclaimed forest. We looked specifically at the connection between English ivy and Douglas Fir growth. More background on our research on River View Natural Area can be found here.
Procedure
To begin, we each designed our own Google Earth Tours by choosing places, inserting placemarks, and learning basic HMTL and KML computer languages to insert links and images and animate these all together to form a narrative. Next, we used our class sources data and the images we uploaded to Flickr to add more dimensions to the patterns we analyzed last week using GIS. Using Google Earth Tours, we recorded animation and audio to discuss some of our research with the backdrop of Google Earth.
Results
- Individual Tours
- Travis Meng: This Google Earth tour was an actual trip I took three summers ago from Beijing to Sanya (the southernmost city of China). We trained down to Guangdong and proceeded to bike around 400km through rural Southern Chinese towns and villages. The tour shows certain significant locations of my trip as well as the route taken. At the time of this lab, I did not have access to the more scenic pictures taken.
- Anna Blythe: This individual Google Earth Tour showcases important locations within the US relevant to my childhood as well as present self. These locations are all situated in the Pacific Northwest region of the US except for one. Therefore it can be inferred that these locations certainly revolve around my closest family and friends. I can recount numerous memories from each location on this tour, as I have lived in and/or visited them very often. These locations are not specific points, such as a restaurant or park but rather the name of a city or place within a state which immediately brings to mind the names of those I associate with visiting there.
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Hannah Smay: My individual Google Earth Tour illustrates some of the places in Idaho I got to visit this summer while living at home. I was able to explore some new mountains and also return to some of the amazing rivers and lakes I grew up visiting. All photos are my own. Being able to fly around Idaho on Google Earth was pretty exciting.
I tried to get almost exactly to the place where I took each of the photos. I chose to keep all of my locations in Idaho because I wanted to reflect on the adventures I had this past summer and share my excitement with this technology.
- RVNA Tour
- Our Google Earth Tour of River View Natural Area focuses on the relationship between English Ivy, an invasive species, and Douglas Fir. From the results of last week’s lab, we expected to find more English Ivy in the northwest region on RVNA and more Douglas Firs in the southaest region. The photographs which correlated with these geographic locations did show variations in ivy and ivy removal, but none of the photographs from Flickr shed light on our Douglas Fir results.
Download: 220tour
- Our Google Earth Tour of River View Natural Area focuses on the relationship between English Ivy, an invasive species, and Douglas Fir. From the results of last week’s lab, we expected to find more English Ivy in the northwest region on RVNA and more Douglas Firs in the southaest region. The photographs which correlated with these geographic locations did show variations in ivy and ivy removal, but none of the photographs from Flickr shed light on our Douglas Fir results.
Discussion
Similar to what we discussed last week in our lab report, the limitations of the pathways on RVNA prevent us from truly acquiring an accurate sample which could illuminate some of the patterns we noticed by mapping English Ivy and Douglas Fir growth. We found that there was certainly more evidence of English Ivy removal in the Flickr photographs from the southeast region. This experiment with Google Tours helped visualize and narrate some of the patterns we found by class sourcing data points and photographs from our investigation into River View Natural Area.