Entry #9: How to use Google Maps to learn geometry? 🗺️

  How to use Google Maps to learn geometry?

When I was younger, I loved using Google Maps to discover places that I did not know, to let my imagination fly and be attracted by those wonderful places that we can find on the Earth 🌍. The ability to display 2D maps and its 3D street view are wonderful tools for knowing new places. No doubts about it. But... does its potential only go so far? 💻 

The answer to that question is not. The potential of this tool is incredible, and today I am going to give you some tips on how to use it for teaching geometry! 👇

Which shape is it?

If you allow me, I am going to ask you to do this first activity yourselves, you will see how interesting it is! First of all, I am going to list a number of locations, which are the following ones: 

City and country	Place	Link
Palmanova (Italy)	Piazza Grande	https://goo.gl/maps/qKZetrawgxmJXn7y5
Archidona (Spain)	Plaza Ochavada de Andalucía	https://goo.gl/maps/UmKkbh1qE12LAoPN7
Córdoba (Spain)	Plaza de la Corredera	https://goo.gl/maps/kvh2fR1szdR7GjNR6
Lille (France)	Citadelle de Lille	https://goo.gl/maps/3U7sXr9fgTVMTbUD9

Have you seen them on Google Maps? Nice! 😉 Now it is time to answer questions like the following ones:

- How many edges and vertices does each plaza or square have? 

- What is the name of the figure that you can see? Are there any other figures? 

Then, once answered these questions, would you be able to measure the perimeter of the locations and their area? I will show you how! Well... in fact, it is quite easy 😉. Just click on the right button of the mouse over the place on the map where you want to start to measure (e.g., a vertex) and select "measure distance". Now, simply click where you want to place the point to measure, ideally on the vertices of the figure. And finally, you will find those data inside a rectangle! Look at it!

As you can see, this activity is not quite difficult, and it would be really interesting for students to see how the different geometrical figures can be found by using Google Maps. Therefore, we would be using an ICT tool which is really close to the current reality of our students.

In addition to all of this, we can use the tool "Street View" in order to look for 3D solids, as we have done with the plane figures. For example, let's click here, could you say which is that polyhedron? Answer it by writing a comment! 👀

Look for figures or solids!

Another activity could consist of asking students to do the same as I have done beforehand. So, we could ask them to use Google Maps in order to look for a place in which we can find a figure and, after that, to share with us the link. Of course, we can help them by making some guidelines or giving them some clues in order to narrow the search space 😀. 

Extra tips! 

There are a few more things that we can do with Google Maps, even we can work in a transversal way along with other subjects or aspects. For example:

- We can ask them to research the country in which a particular place is located.

- We can measure the distances between locations and make calculations, and even relate it to a petrol and money problem if we want to go from one city to another!

- We can learn about the historical background of a location.

I hope you liked this entry. If you have more ideas, leave them in the comments! ✎ Therefore, here is a video in which geometry is worked on using Google Earth, but it is equally valid for Google Maps! 🌍