Google Earth - Touring across the world!

I mentioned this in an earlier post. The following is a little brief description of my tour around the world especially about the global car industry.

You start from spaces view and then click on the blue cars to find out the information.

The first part of the tour starts in Detroit with the global headquarters of Ford.

The second takes you to some of the factories in South America, Afirca and Asia.

The next set of pictures are about factories in Europe where information on the parts made and some of the industrial locational factors considered.

All the '.kmz' files for all the google earth lessons can be found at the link below:

http://healingschoolgeographydepartment.synthasite.com/google-earth-files.php

Some teaching ideas:

I have used this to teach about the global car industry. I use a worksheet which the students fill in as the tour progresses. I play some music as the tour goes along. It takes about ten minutes.

For a quick starter I do a quick car recognition test and then discuss how the cars are linked to globalisation.

After the tour I then discuss what the students have found and think about the different locational factors. We discuss why factories are found in LEDCs and why the main part of engine assembly is done in MEDCs. Also look at the specific location factors for a factory and the location of factories in reference to markets and workforce.

You could get the students to draw a map showing the distribution of Ford over the planet.

Students could produce a whole range of information like leaflets, poster etc or create a moviemaker file. Although I intend to get the students to write a narration for part of the tour.

Just some ideas.

Mr. Still