Around the World in 8 Seconds

Google Earth has been applied in multiple fields, such as Humanitarianism and Education.

Humanitarianism

There are two main forms of humanitarian intervention: Short-term and long-term.

Short term humanitarian intervention involves disaster response.  Google Earth has been used to quickly gather and display images of sites damaged by natural disasters within a couple of days.  Some prominent examples include Hurricane Katrina and the Earthquake in Haiti.

However, with long-term intervention, whether Google Earth is effective or not does not have a clear answer.  The wide availability of Google Earth has been the focus of humanitarian groups in order to incite public response about humanitarian issues. Some of these organizations have created information layers to explain their agenda and provide information. One prominent example is Crisis in Darfur formed by the United States Holocaust Museum.  This information layer integrates information of destroyed villages and stories of victims and survivors with regions in Darfur.  Although there has been great public response, there are issues concerning whether such information layers are indeed having an impact on the political situation.  For example, violence and genocide in Darfur still occurs despite the existence of Crisis in Darfur.  Additionally, the content of the layer may also influence the lack of influence.

This particular image is that of a displaced refugee camp in Darfur.

Education

Because Google Earth is easy to use, capable of representing 3D imagery, and open for people to create information layers, Google Earth is a powerful tool for education (Tuttle, Anderson, & Huff, 2008, p. 1488).  There are multiple KMLs that discuss varying effects of climate change and future changes in the Earth due to climate change.  In addition to science, there are also KMLs for literature education.  With Google Lit Trips, you can download a KML that keeps track of the setting and setting changes that occur throughout a particular novel.  The possibilities are endless.

This is a predicted temperature change of the Earth by 2090 based on current conditions. This image comes from the KML "Climate Projections Under High Emissions," provided by the website "Projects for Environmental and Earth Sciences: Impact of Climate Change," the link for which is provided at the bottom of this page.