Google Earth Directions for the Clean Watershed Project

Logging into Google Earth

1. Double click on the icon with your cursor to

launch the software. There should be an icon on
your desktop. If you do not have an icon, please
inform the instructor.

Moving Around In Google Earth

2. The software offers a navigation tool in the upper

right-hand corner of the screen. This tool will help
you to zoom in or out, change your direction, or
tilt your perspective.

3. The top compass lets you change your perspective

from overhead to a position along side of it.

4. The bottom compass spins the Earth North, South,

East and West.

5. The slide bar beneath the compass lets you zoom

in and out. Spend some time zooming in and out.

6. Use your mouse to move around. Try to center

your location on the Southeastern United States.
When you get there, zoom in on Marietta. Can
you see the outline of the city?
Finding Places in Google Earth

7. In the upper left-hand corner, type in your

address, and then click on the magnifying glass.
The program will zoom in on the location of the
address you entered. Any place with a physical
street address can be found this way.

8. Google Earth stores data either by street address

or by latitude and longitude coordinates. This
information can be found at the bottom of your
screen. The elevation of a place can also be found
in this area.

9. You can also find places of interest such as

National Parks or monuments by typing in its
name. Type in “Statue of Liberty” and click on the
magnifying glass to zoom in on that location.

10. Besides address and places of interest, you can

find the exact location your field research area. To
do this type in the latitude and longitude of those
coordinates. If you don’t know them see your
instructor.

11. After you visit a place, it is stored in the temporary

folder under the Places Panel. To return to a
place, double click on it.
Using Layers in Google Earth

1. Google Earth Pro’s data base comes with a number of

data layers that can be turned on and off. These layers are
found in the left-hand panel at the bottom.

2. Sometimes this layer is collapsed to give you more

viewing pace for the other panels. You can open or close a
panel by clicking on the arrow in the title bar for that panel.

3. Once the panel is open, use your cursor and slide the
panel up so you can see the available layers. To do this,
move your cursor over the darker line just above the arrow
to expand the panel. Notice your cursor changes to a bar
with arrows. Click and drag up to increase the size of the
panel, or drag down to decrease the size.

4. There are layers for roads, buildings, traffic and weather

to name just a few. To activate a layer, check the box on the
left-hand side of the layer. This will activate it.

5. Some of these layers are actually comprised of many

individual layers. To see each layer in a category (or folder),
left click on the plus sign to expand that layer. Click on the
minus sign to collapse that layer.
Checking the Weather and Traffic for Our Trip

1. Check the weather for our field trip today. To do this,

check the box for the weather layer. Give it time to load.

2. Make sure you are over the southeast region of the

United States. You can change your location by using your
mouse. If you are on the other side of the world, you can get
there faster by typing in the name of the city and then
clicking on the magnifying glass.

3. Expand the weather layer by clicking on the plus sign.

How many individual layers are included in this category?

4. Uncheck the layers: clouds, radar, and information. This

will leave you with the forecast layer. To find out more
information about a particular region, click on one of the
placemarks near the Chattoochee where we will be
collecting our water samples. These are the types of
placemarks we will be creating after we collect our data this
afternoon.
Environmental Layers in Google Earth

1. Google Earth Pro has a number of layers that can be used

to teach students about environmental issues. Most of
these layers can be found under the Global Awareness
category in the layer panel. Some of these layers deal with
endangered species, mountain top removal for mining, and
the UN’s Atlas of our Changing world.

2. The National Geographic Association also has a layer

under the Geographic Web category.

3. To activate one or more of these layers; expand the

Global Awareness folder by clicking on the plus sign, and
then checking the box.

4. To view a place mark, click on it.

5. Many of these placemarks have images, text, and links to

websites where students can learn more about the issue.
Researching Collection Sites

Collection sites are determined by time constraints, ease of

access, and nearness to possible dumping sites. In order to
find the best sites, students can spend some time in Google
Earth Pro looking up farms, slaughter houses, paper mills,
recycling plants, landfills, major construction sites, waste
water treatment plants, and other major industries. These
sites can be viewed in Google Earth Pro as placemarks, as
shown here. Many of these places contact information and
websites are already contained in Google Earth Pro’s
database.
Students can add information to a placemark. We will be
showing you how to create your own placemarks or how to
add information to a placemark and then saving the layer
later on in the presentation.
Compiling Searches
Searches can be compiled by checking each layer and then
exporting them as a layer (see Saving a Layer). You can
then zoom in and see which ones are located on or near a
stream that is part of the Chattahoochee Watershed. Once
this has been done, students can discuss the best possible
collection sites for the project and what pollutants they
might find.
If time is short, you might want to spend a day or two on a
weekend going to the sites yourself to see if they are easy
to access and won’t endanger students. Make sure they
are not on private property. If they are, contact the
company or residence, and let them know what you are
doing. You can also take a GPS unit with you to record the
exact location.

Common Fresh Water Pollutants Associated with Industries

1. Nitrogen, phosphate, and potassium are major components of fertilizers. These pollutants are commonly used in
agriculture but may also be found in rivers or creeks that run adjacent to golf courses. Creeks that run though
housing developments may also have unacceptable levels of NKP.

2. Coliform Bacteria is a common river pollutant that is associated with sewage treatment plants and waste water
overflow problems during storms.

3. Turbidity is a measure of the clarity of the water and therefore is an indicator of the about of Total Suspended
Solids (TSS). Increase TSS can be related to construction sites or storm water run-off, which may contain any
number of pollutants.

4. Calcium Carbonate is another common fresh water pollutant that is measured with a hardness test. The
pollutant comes from concrete production and major construction projects around the city.

5. Chlorine is used in the production of paper and can find its way into creeks and streams that run adjacent to
paper mills.
Sample Water Quality Monitoring Data Sheet
Creating a Folder to Store Your Placemark(s)

12. The Clean Watersheds project’s goal is to create a

composite layer of various schools water quality data
so the students can look at broad themes related to
water quality and usage. Therefore it is important to
keep each schools’ data separated into folders that
can easily be added to our composite layer.

13. To create a folder to store your placemarks, move

your mouse over the “My Places” icon in the places
panel and then right-click with your mouse.

14. Choose “Add” from the menu and then move your
mouse toward the arrow for the pop-out window.

15. Choose the “Folder” option.

16. Give the Folder a title and also include your name
(for example – Nose Creek – Thomas). This will help
the teacher know which placemark belongs to which
student.

17. If you are a school with many test sites, or many

placemarks, name your folder with the name of your
school and the semester (for example – The Walker
School Spring 2009).
Creating a Placemark

18. Click on the yellow push pin in the tool bar at

the top of your screen. A yellow push pin will
appear along with a dialog box where we will
be entering information later.

19. Click and drag the push pin to the location

you want. If you can’t see it directly, you can
use the navigation tools to move around or
the zoom tool to zoom in or out until you are
at your test site.

20. Type in a title for your placemark, such as

“Nose Creek Spring 2009” and click OK.

21. You should now see your placemark. If it’s

not in the right location and you want to
move it, right click on the yellow push pin and
choose “Properties from the menu. Once the
dialog box is open you can use your mouse to
move the placemark to where you want it.
Adding the Clean Watersheds Template to Your Placemark

22. Open a web browser, such as Internet

Explorer and type in the address for the
Clean Watersheds Project in the address
bar of your browser:
http://cleanwatersheds.wikispaces.com

23. On the right-hand side of your screen

under “Resources”, click on the
“Documents” page link.

24. Scroll down and look for the “Placemark

Template Code” file and double click on it
to open it.

25. If it asks you if you want to save it or

open it, choose “Open with” and choose
Microsoft Word from the drop down list.
Then click OK.

26. Copy and paste the code from the Word

document into the place mark.

27. Click OK to save the template to your

icon.

28. Double click on the icon to see what the

template looks like. There is a banner
which ties together each placemark and
gives them a common appearance.
There is also a place for you to write
about your project, add the results of
your data and also to add an image. The
image could be of you or a friend taking a
water quality test, or you could place an
image of a graph in the picture place
holder.
Changing the Placeholder Text in the Template

29. If you navigated away from the

“Documents” page of the Clean
Watersheds project return to that page by
clicking on the “Documents” link on the
left-side of the wikispace.

30. On the documents page, scroll down and

open the file “Clean Watersheds Template
Guide”.

31. As with opening the file in the last section,

if it asks you if you want to save it or open
it, choose “Open with” and choose
Microsoft Word from the drop down list.
Then click OK.

32. When the file opens, take a couple of

minutes to review it. This document
explains some of the code and shows you
where to substitute your text with the
place holder text. Items on the right in the
boxes give you directions on what to do.
Arrows point from the boxes to the text
where you should substitute your
information. A section of this document is
shown to the right.

33. If you have any questions about where to

place your text, you should ask your
instructor.

34. We will be editing each sections and then

saving it. Once you have replaced the text
for a section, click OK on the placemark.
Adding Images to a Placemark

35. To reference an image in your placemark it must

already be stored on the internet somewhere.
You can upload images to photosharing sites such
as Flickr (http://www.flicrk.com) or Photobucket
(http://www.photobucket.com). If you have a
project wiki from another site, such as the Walker
Water project wiki
(http://walkerwaterworld.pbwiki.com/) you can also
upload your images there. Ask your teacher
where the images from your test site are stored
online.

36. If your image is already online somewhere, open

an Internet browser and navigate to where the
image is stored online.

37. Once there, right click on the image and copy the
location code. Make sure to get the entire code.
It should end in .jpg.

38. If you closed the placemark from the previous

section, open it by right clicking on the icon and
choosing “Properties” from the menu.

39. Scroll down to near the bottom of the code and

look for the highlighted text shown here to the
right. <p><img src= …> is XHTML code that
stands for image source.

40. Replace the text between the quotation marks (“)

that ends with .jpg with the location code for
your image. Don’t worry about trying to adjust
the size of your image so it will fit in the
placemark. The template has been programmed
to adjust your picture to the appropriate size.

41. Click OK to close the placemark.

42. Open your placemark to see if the image is there.

Downloading and Installing the Custom Icon

43. If you navigated away from the

“Documents” page of the Clean Watersheds
project return to that page by clicking on the
“Documents” link on the left-side of the
wikispace.

44. Scroll down the page and look for the

custom icon as shown to the right. Right
click on this icon and choose “Save Image
As” from the menu.

45. Save the icon to your folder on the school

network. Your teacher can show you how to
do this.

46. If you closed your placemark from the

previous exercise, right click on it to open
the properties dialog box.

47. Click on the icon selector in the upper right

corner of the placemark dialog box. Google
Earth gives you a number of built in icons to
choose from. In this exercise we are going
to add a custom icon, though.

48. At the bottom of the icon selector, click on

“Add Custom Icon”.

49. Click “Browse” and navigate to where you

stored the custom icon for the Clean
Watersheds project.

50. Select the icon and click “Open”.

51. Click OK to upload the custom icon to

Google Earth.
Saving Your Information to Your Computer

52. The placemarks you create are

stored on your computer and not
on Google’s server. It is therefore
necessary to save the placemarks
you create to your folder on the
schools’ network.

53. Before we save our placemark (or

layer), make sure that any
placemarks you created are in the
folder. If they are not, then click
on them and drag them into the
folder you created earlier.

54. Collapse the folder by clicking on

the + sign next to the folder.

55. Make sure there is a “Check Mark”

in the box next to the folder. This
means that all objects in the
folder have been selected. If
there is not, then click on the box
to the left of the folder until a
check mark appear. NOTE: This is
the most common way students
loose their information.

56. Click on the folder to highlight it.

57. In the File menu, choose “Save”

and then “Save Place As”.
Because your placemark(s) are in
a folder the program considers the
folder to be one object.

58. Navigate to your folder on the

school network by clicking on
“Browse Folders”. Then click
“Save”.