You can look at all kinds of interesting places in Google Earth and Maps if you search correctly and long enough. But if you’re searching for something small and you don’t know the coordinates, you might get very frustrated. That’s where two sites that I recently discovered come in handy.

Google Earth Cool Places is a site that catalogs links and files for cool, interesting things found in Google Earth. You can search the database or just browse using the categories featured on the site’s homepage. Take a look at the Statues and Monuments category to find the Arch in St. Louis or the Crazy Horse Monument in South Dakota.

MapLandia is a site similar to Google Earth Cool Places. The difference between the two is MapLandia offers the option to view places within the site using the embedded Google Maps.

Applications for Education
Google Earth and Google Maps are great resources not only for social studies teachers but also for math, science, and literature teachers. Math teachers can use Google Earth and Maps for lessons in measurement. Science teachers may want to explore using Google Earth for monitoring CO2 emissions around the world. Literature teachers should explore Google Lit Trips to learn how students can create literature tours in Google Earth.