Deborah and others, Google Earth is unusual in that it builds geographic information systems development from satellite images, and kids look down the street to see if a car is at their girlfriend's house before calling. Unfortunately, it usually takes a week or so for them to realize that it's not a LIVE satellite image, since it's always sunny, everywhere in the world.
Yet it's a remarkable tool to do much more than most educators would guess. Two of my adjacent communities have just been announced for a new subway line extension, at $550,000,000 over a ten year period. Nobody knows where the stations will be, nor what the consequences would be for alternate placements. Nor does the state planning agency typically develop strategies on the basis of alternative scenarios, in part because of historic lack of accountability, in part because of poor budgeting, and in part because they just never thought it was important. With Google Earth it is both important, feasible, and, in fact, can be done by a bunch of high school kids developing scenarios for any public square between the start and projected end of the new subway line. We've tentatively engaged teams of college students, over the next ten years, to assist the high school students in a variety of projects that range from an epidemiological analysis of asthma and the largest highways to a business analysis of the economic impact of stations affecting the local businesses in key neighborhoods to a series of websites on what trolleys used to look like in the memory of their grandparents, using family albums. It will be a long project with many outcomes. One of the prominent outcomes is that this particular trolley spur line links to another "urban ring" that will link all mass transit in the Boston area about five miles from the center of the spoke. That ring is currently projected for a mix of trolley and bus lines, but was once planned for light rail vehicles and high speed connections. Since that ring - not coincidentally - runs through a "rust belt" of economically depressed inner suburbs, now "redlined" from mass transit by 100 years of industrial blight, it will be interesting to see how well the students of those suburbs learn to advocate on behalf of themselves, their families, and their future, once we give them the tools - which...include but are not limited to Google Earth. Thanks. Joe Beckmann -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Deborah Elizabeth Finn Sent: Monday, July 11, 2005 2:52 PM To: The Digital Divide Network discussion group Subject: [DDN] Google Earth for Nonprofit Organizations: Let's All Try It,and See What Happens (A version of this item with live links is available at <http://blog.deborah.elizabeth.finn.com/blog/_archives/2005/7/11/1015777.htm l>.) Dear Colleagues, I'm usually pretty staunch in my belief that nonprofit and philanthropic organizations should not be carried away by cool tools, but should subordinate the technology they use to organizational missions and strategies. But now Google Earth has come along, and I think that we should all download it, fiddle around with it, and see if we can make creative use of it in our sector. Basically, Google Earth is a free online geographical information system (GIS) tool that allows us to make nearly seamless use of a wealth of visual information that is drawn from many sources. It brings smart maps to our desktops. It's easy to see that this will be a powerful tool for nonprofit educational organizations that want to teach geography. (This is a wonderful discipline, which draws upon social research and natural science for insights about our world, but which is often unfairly deprecated as obsolete "now that we know where everything is.") I can also see how useful Google Earth will be for planners and community-based advocacy groups. But I'd also like to challenge all of us in the nonprofit sector to think about other creative ways to mine this data. For example, can direct-service nonprofits use Google Earth to better understand their catchment areas and the clients that live there? Let's start brainstorming, and find out! Best regards from Deborah Deborah Elizabeth Finn Boston, Massachusetts, USA [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://blog.deborah.elizabeth.finn.com/blog http://public.xdi.org/=deborah.elizabeth.finn _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message. _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
