| Google Earth,an teaching platform which started in recent years,is gradually being used in geography teaching for middle school.Google Earth provides excellent teaching resources with its intuitive and authenticity.This paper aims to use Google Earth as an teaching platform to improve students' geospatial thinking ability,to study what kind of content in textbooks is suitable for Google Earth,and to test whether Google Earth can improve geospatial thinking ability or not by comparison of teaching cases.First,I summarized the definition and content of geospatial thinking ability based on the conclusion of research by geographers and geographical educators.Then I explained the technical features of Google Earth and how it can improve students' geospatial thinking ability.After that,I analyzed the questionnaire by geography educators to know about the correlation between high school compulsory geography textbook and geospatial thinking ability.Last,I selected some chapters and designed teaching cases.I set up experiment group and control group for teaching cases,and conducted tests according to the effect of classroom teaching.Also I designed Google Earth geospatial exploration activities for junior high school students.In the teaching experiments,the class which use Google Earth and the class which use traditional teaching method have significant differences on overall average.The experimental group scored an average of 5.44 points and 11.54 points higher than the control group in two tests.Google Earth is very useful to improve student's geospatial thinking ability.I discovered that the experimental group which use Google Earth as a carrier to display has made an comprehensive improvement in terms of geospatial thinking ability compared to the contrast group which use traditional method to display in experimental teaching activities.Therefore,Google Earth is beneficial to the development of the geospatial thinking ability if it be used in geography classroom of secondary school. |
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