As I read a discussion on wind power the other day I started thinking about how little our students understand the concept of alternative energy. In Discovery Education Science there is a great virtual lab called WOW! Windmills. This is a great lab for students to explore how the location of windmills can effect the power being generated, but I thought there might be more students could to explore the concept once they have a greater understading of wind power. As I searched for some ideas I found a great lesson from the UK that showcased the power of blending science with Google Earth. The resources and image are from a site called Juicy Geography and is an example of students researching a proposed Wind Farm in England to and providing the students with all of the data and concerns to help develop their discussions on the proposed wind farm. What I loved was that students created the wind farm virtually in Google Earth using Sketchup. To see their creation download the kml file.
I found plenty of other possibilities for bringing Google Earth into the Science classroom as well. For some examples check out these sites: