The Tech Savvy Teacher

Young children are very curious about the world around them.  They wonder about many things: why the sky is blue, why does the weather change seasons, and what does earth look like from space?  The advancements of modern technology make studying these questions readily available and applicable to the child’s world.  The Tech Savvy Teacher takes advantage of the resources that technology provides to enhance the teaching of their students. 

A mind-blowing technology used widely today is Google Earth.  We used this resource to meet 1st grade content core objective 2b to describe physical features surrounding the child’s home, school and community.

Before using the website, we asked the students to brainstorm what they thought they would see if they were to look down on their community from space. 

After making predictions, the children were asked to compare them to what they actually observed on Google Earth.

We started out by looking at the aerial view of our school, Wasatch Elementary.  We took note of the surrounding physical features and landmarks from this view.

We then zoomed in closer to look at our school's playground, a view of the school from the street,and also nearby places like the Brigham Young Univeristy Creamery and the LaVell Edwards' Stadium.

  

After viewing these sights, we invited the children to suggest other areas of the community to explore. We also discussed as a class if they have ever been to these places, where they are in relation to the school, and size comparisons.       

Overall, this was a fun and informational activity for our 1st graders.  They were able to enhance their science skills by forming predictions about their surrounding community and making observations about their world by viewing images from Google Earth.  It was fun for the children to recognize familiar sites that they see each day as they ride to school.  Using the technology of Google Earth, the children were able to view their community from a unique perspective.