The following resources can be used to visualise information in front of the entire class with a data projector, or by individual students working through an activity or exercise.
National Geographic MapMaker Interactive
http://education.nationalgeographic.com/education/mapping/interactive-map/
Students can create their own maps or view data on population, climate, temperature, rainfall and more. Year 4 students could use this site to examine global biomes.
WWF Wildfinder
http://worldwildlife.org/pages/wildfinder
Use this simple site to view the extent of the world's main species. Simply enter the name of the animal and view a map of its global distribution. Note, not all species are mapped! Year 3, comparing places or Year 4 environmental studies would suit this resource.
USGS Earthquake map
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/
This great resource gives you access to a live map of the world's earthquakes. You can filter different earthquakes out by location, intensity or date. Great for Year 7 hazards or Year 8 landforms and landscapes.
Middle and Secondary level
National Map of Australia
http://nationalmap.nicta.com.au/
This new resource provides and easy-to-use platform for accessing a wealth of Australian-specific data from human habitation, infrastructure to land cover and use as well as plenty of natural data. You can view the data in 2D or 2.5D and you can even layer contour lines. The tool offers a number of basemaps to help interpret your data. Well worth examining as a tool for you to demonstrate information to students or for them to examine their country in detail.
Ordnance Survey’s GIS Zone
http://mapzone.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/mapzone/giszone.html
A wonderful introduction to geospatial. Although older it does contain some useful games, most with excellent tasks attached.
Mapping Life
http://www.mappinglife.org/
A simple search tool that allows you to see where different species can be found on earth. Look for relationships between an animal and the geography around it, different backgrounds can help. Useful across a range of year levels and topics.
Geoscience Australia’s Sentinel bushfire mapper
http://sentinel.ga.gov.au/acres/sentinel/index.shtml
Current and past bushfire events across Australia are mapped in the Sentinel tool. Change backgrounds to view different information such as a current satellite image or a 250k topographic map. Click here to go to a classroom activity using this online resource.
World Resource Institute’s Reefs at Risk Revisited map
http://www.wri.org/our-work/project/reefs-risk/interactive-map
This simple map shows the overall threat level of each coral reef around the world. Use the Google map to navigate to different reefs. There is also an explanation of how the threat level was determined.
Geoscience Australia Recent earthquakes
http://www.ga.gov.au/earthquakes/initRecentQuakes.do
An online map (and database) of earthquakes, simple!
ShowRWorld
http://show.mappingworlds.com/world/
Cartograms showing a wide range of really useful information can be found at this site. Each cartogram adjusts the size of the world's countries to reflect the data. Again, useful across a range of year levels but Year 9 Geographies of interconnections and Year 10 Geographies of human well-being would be most suitable.
Kml Factbook
http://www.kmlfactbook.org/
Another visual tool that displays demographic data, this time from the CIA World Factbook, however this tool lets you view your data on a 3D globe (if you have Google Earth installed on the machine you are using). You can also download the kml files to view or share.
USGS Earthquake map
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/
This great resource gives you access to a live map of the world's earthquakes. You can filter different earthquakes out by location, intensity or date. Great for Year 7 hazards or Year 8 landforms and landscapes.
Additional resources
For additional online geospatial resources, see this page.
This website has been designed for pre-service teachers and may be of interest in extending your knowledge.
http://preservicespatialtech.blogspot.com.au/
Another rich resource for teaching geography and spatial thinking is ArcGIS Online: http://www.arcgis.com/home It contains thousands of maps and data sets from ecoregions to natural hazards and more. Students can also map their own field-collected data in ArcGIS Online. They can add images, text, and video to their maps, and save and share their maps with others.
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