Need a new tool to help hook your readers on a particular book? Check out a great FREE resource, Google Earth. Google Earth can help readers experience the setting of their favorite stories through a virtual trip. The software allows students to visit story sites, gain insight into the life of the characters, learn about geography, and enhance learning in content areas.

The first step in your virtual field trip must be downloading the FREE Google Earth program. Just go to:
http://earth.google.com/download-earth.html.  Next, try some of the quick start guides and tutorials that are available so that you can become comfortable with the program before working with students.  Here are a few to try:

Google for Educators 

http://www.google.com/educators/start_earth.html

Google Earth 101 for Educators
http://www.teachinghacks.com/wiki/index.php?title=Google_Earth_101_for_Educators

You can also search for example videos on Teacher Tube, www.teachertube.com.  There is a good video example in the form of a locations tour for the Diary of Anne Frank that shows the capabilities of Google Earth.  While it moves a little fast, it will certainly give the viewer an idea of how you can use this tool to enhance student understanding.

Next, check out the Google Lit Trips (www.googlelittrips.org) for ready-made, virtual field trips created by teachers and students for classroom use.  These are interactive literary experiences that can be downloaded as kmz files (the type of file that Google Earth needs) and are not narrated videos, so they can be customized and narrated by the teacher or by students at their own pace.  They include placemarkers, images/photographs, plot/chapter summaries, discussion questions, vocabulary links, web links, and in some cases, 3-D models.  There are examples at all grade levels to be found on this site.   They include:

Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey (K-5)

My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier (6-8)

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (9-12)

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (9-12)

The Road by Cormac McCarthy (Higher Education)

Once you get the hang of Google Earth, you may want to create and share your own Google Lit Trips!  Be sure to check out the Google Lit Trip site (www.googlelittrips.org) for resources for educators that wish to build their own trip.