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The Land Use Calculator is a tool for rapid scenario analysis of land-use implications, useful for decision-makers to address real-world challenges and for classroom teaching of conservation biology, sustainable development, environmental economics and global change biology. It is a decision-support tool targeted at land-use decision-makers in the tropic, allowing users to evaluate the implications and tradeoffs of pursuing alternative development scenarios by simultaneously accounting for the societal priorities of agricultural production, economic development, carbon conservation and biodiversity protection. Users specify a few environmental and socioeconomic parameters describing a landscape scenario, and the tool determines the implications of that scenario in terms of biodiversity, carbon stocks, greenhouse-gas emissions, financial returns of the land and employment opportunities.

"GIS is used as an inquiry-driven, problem-solving, standards-based set of tasks that incorporates fieldwork and provides career pathways that are increasingly in demand. It helps students think critically, use real data, and connects them to their own community. It does so in informal, primary, secondary, and university settings and appeals to today's visual learners. Geotechnologies, along with biotechnologies and nanotechnologies, are the three key skills and job markets identified by the US Department of Labor for the 21st Century (Gewin 2004)."

Human growth has strained the Earth's resources, but as Johan Rockstrom reminds us, our advances also give us the science to recognize this and change behavior. His research has found nine "planetary boundaries" that can guide us in protecting our planet's many overlapping ecosystems.

"Wikis are an exceptionally useful tool for getting students more involved in curriculum. They're often appealing and fun for students to use, while at the same time ideal for encouraging participation, collaboration, and interaction. Read on to see how you can put wikis to work in your classroom."

"Using GIS software applications can assist you in observing patterns in data as well as potential risks. Scientists use several indicators to monitor the quality and vulnerability of a watershed, which are recorded into a database. However, without the use of a GIS it would be difficult to assess the overall health of the Chesapeake Bay watershed. "

"This module contains an exercise in which students are asked to examine the frequency and distribution of earthquake epicenters and compare these epicenters to the distribution of plate boundaries and cities. Students download earthquake epicenters for the last several days and for an entire year from the Internet, and map the information using ArcView geographic information system (GIS), and analyze the patterns that become evident. The module presents background information on earthquakes and GIS, and includes step-by-step instructions for using the technological tools. This module can be adapted to a wide range of grade levels and may be presented as an introductory GIS exercise. It may be completed without a GIS by using a paper base map, but requires access to the World Wide Web (see Module Overview and Instructor's Notes)."

"Google has a new desktop tool called Google Refine to help with cleaning up messy datasets, transforming them, and augmenting them with web-based data services. I could see this tool being used throughout the Lab in many areas: on field data, preparing science datasets for analysis, even run-of-the-mill business data manipulation. If you ever find yourself using a text editor or Excel to manipulate data, you might find this tool useful. Note that it comes in somewhat unusual packaging, because after downloading and installing the tool on your machine, you interact with it via a web browser. The link above has several videos that demonstrate its utility." (Paul Allen)

"In this activity, undergraduate students learn to use satellite and aerial imagery, maps, graphs, spreadsheets, descriptive information, and statistics to compare energy and oil consumption rates between states in the United States and among various countries. They also use this information to explain these differences, as well as differences in categories of consumption, such as domestic, transportation, industrial, and commercial use. They are also asked for opinions regarding what measures countries should take toward reducing oil consumption. "

One stop page for links to fun tools you or your students can use

I've used Animoto, Quizlet, Xtranormal and Dropbox. Love Quizlet and Dropbox....don't use Animoto or Xtranormal all that much although they are fun and your students might enjoy "playing".

Drop box is awesome - external storage site! Allows you to access files from any computer and up to 2G free storage. More with pay upgrade. I think I will link the Web Tools Index in my wiki for students to use at their convenience.

Google's global, zoomable time-lapse map illustrates land use change phenomena such as the sprouting of Dubai's artificial Palm Islands, the retreat of Alaska's Columbia Glacier, deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon, and urban growth in Las Vegas. "Using Google Earth Engine technology, we sifted through 2,068,467 images-a total of 909 terabytes of data-to find the highest-quality pixels (e.g., those without clouds), for every year since 1984 and for every spot on Earth. We then compiled these into enormous planetary images, 1.78 terapixels each, one for each year. As the final step, we worked with the CREATE Lab at Carnegie Mellon University, recipients of a Google Focused Research Award, to convert these annual Earth images into a seamless, browsable HTML5 animation."

The Conservation Education Strategy Toolkit contains resources developed by the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (AFWA) to support conservation educators. Includes lots of useful stuff: downloadable lessons, "Benchmarks for Conservation Literacy," "Field Investigations: Using Outdoor Environments to Foster Student Learning of Scientific Processes" etc.

"The arctic tern (Sterna paradisaea) makes an incredible migration each year. These small birds travel distances of more than 50000 miles, from pole to pole, crossing through temperate and tropical regions along the way. Carsten Egevang used geo-locator tags to track ten of these terns, and he shares their story with us in this tour."

Using Storify you can create a story using media from different sections of the Web. After signing up for a free profile, you can "curate" elements of a story by dragging and dropping status updates, photos, or videos to make your own interactive presentation. You can write headlines and text.

By Joseph Kerski at ESRI, a series of 10 short videos discussing uses of a book about the now-extinct bird species, the Great Auk. He discusses cross-disciplinary connections, use of ArcGIS Online to explore the geography of events in the book, and implications of connecting geography and language arts.

Improvements to Federal Water Use Data Would Increase Understanding of Trends in Power Plant Water Use

"In this 50-question activity, you will determine the best locations to site a wind energy farm in Colorado. You will use GIS as your primary investigative tool and use spatial analysis techniques to consider the best site. You will consider highways, wind speed, cities, size of polygon, contiguity, elevation, federal land, and will perform a number of geoprocessing functions including dissolve, intersect, erase, join, and more to arrive at your conclusion. "

"You can use Google Earth to simply search for a place or try one our advanced features, such as recording a tour or importing GPS data. Whether you're learning to use Google Earth for the first time or you're already an expert user, here are some tools to help you explore further. "

"Use the A to Z to find out about different areas of biodiversity importance. These include internationally recognised protected areas such as World Heritage Sites and Ramsar Sites, as well as the many approaches used to prioritise areas for conservation effort and protection including Biodiversity hotspots and Key Biodiversity Areas. "

"What is the Earth Exploration Toolbook? The Earth Exploration Toolbook is a collection of computer-based Earth science activities. Each activity, or chapter, introduces one or more data sets and an analysis tool that enables users to explore some aspect of the Earth system. Step-by-step instructions in each chapter walk users through an example - a case study in which they access data and use analysis tools to explore issues or concepts in Earth system science. In the course of completing a chapter, users produce and analyze maps, graphs, images, or other data products. The ultimate goal of each activity is to build user's skills and confidence so they can use data to conduct their own investigations of the Earth system."

Environmentalists to use new Google 3D Trees mapping tool to preserve forests