Year 8 are studying the Amazon rainforest and the causes of deforestation. The teacher opens the Timelapse layer in Google Earth on the board and plays the annual satellite images for Rondônia in western Brazil, where clearing sped up after the BR-364 highway was paved in the 1980s. Students watch the 'fishbone' pattern grow out from the BR-364 highway and its side roads, year by year, in under a minute; the teacher then replays it, pausing at three years so students can sketch the extent of clearing in their books. A second timelapse shows the edge of the Xingu Indigenous Park in Mato Grosso, where cleared farmland creeps up to the park boundary and stops. Students finish by writing an explanation of why clearing follows roads, linking it to cattle ranching, logging and soya farming.
Tools: Google Earth Nine ideas for your own version in Generate
This page is one of a growing set of PICRAT examples by cell, subject and grade. Page maintained by Andy Perryer.