Google Earth is a web based 3D virtual globe that puts the world’s geographic information at your fingertips. Google Earth was first launched 10+ years ago as a desktop application, and has been used by teachers worldwide since then, across all subject matters. However, in the past it had to be downloaded and installed on your Windows, Mac or Linux computer.

By making Google Earth a web application earlier this year, it now can be used on most computers including Chromebooks, without a download. It’s now easier to use in the classroom, and to inspire the next generation of curious minds to explore, learn and care about our vast, beautiful planet.

With Google Earth, it is possible to explore the world and learn a bit about how it all fits together from a variety of different lenses. Google Earth is easy to use and presents, in a geospatial context, a great deal of information that applies to topics ranging from natural sciences to social sciences, history, art, engineering and most other topics that have a geographic component. By offering the ability to place this information in combination on a three-dimensional model of the Earth, it can facilitate understanding of the Earth system and the many subject areas that comprise it.

For example a teacher may kick off a unit about homes by projecting Google Earth at the front of a classroom using the Voyager “This is Home” experience.

No, Google Earth is not just for teachers or the classroom. Google Earth is an app for everyone, and all the content can be consumed by anyone with access to Google Earth.

No, Google Earth is an Additional Service for G Suite users.

G Suite for Education offers two categories of Google services: Core Services (like Gmail, Drive, Calendar, and Classroom) that are provided under your school’s G Suite for Education agreement, and Additional Services, like You Tube, Maps, and Blogger, that are designed for consumer users and can be used with G Suite for Education accounts if allowed for educational purposes by a school’s domain administrator. This article explains more about the differences between Core and Additional Services.

As an Additional Service, Google Earth requires schools to obtain parent or guardian consent for any minor students they allow to use it. For more information on obtaining consent see this page of the Help Center.

If you are at a school that uses G Suite, the administrator of your organization's Google accounts can control who has access to use Google Earth. Administrators manage this in the Google Admin console. Contact your administrator to turn Google Earth on for your organizational group. For more information see this page of the Help Center.

As an “Additional Service,” Google Earth can be used in compliance with COPPA when schools obtain appropriate parental consent. For more information on obtaining consent see this page of the Help Center.

For schools that are unable to grant access to all of their students, we recommend enabling access of Google Earth to teachers in the G Suite Admin console.

No, Google Earth is available to be used in a logged-out experience. However, if students are already signed in with their G Suite for Education account and Earth is turned ON as an Additional Service, students will be also be logged into Earth. This is how other Google tools work for any user.

We use your information in Google Earth to provide and improve the service. The G Suite for Education Privacy Notice provides more detail on how Google collects and uses information when you use Google services, including Earth, with a G Suite for Education account.

Your location may be determined from your IP address. Google has a dynamically evolving algorithm that utilizes aggregated, anonymized IP information.

When you or your student logs in to for the first time, a window will pop up asking if you would like to allow Google to know your location. You can choose to block access at that moment or you can have your G Suite admin disable Geolocation services in the admin console. If at any point of time you would like re-enable Geolocation services, your G Suite admin can do so in the admin console.

When you or your students log in to for the first time, a box will pop up asking if you would like to allow Google to know your location. You can choose to block access at that moment or you can have your G Suite admin disable Geolocation services in the admin console.

Google works diligently to keep people safe both online and offline. However, if you believe you have run across something inappropriate while exploring Google Earth, please report the issue through the “Feedback” button found under the Menu of Google Earth.

If any Street View image or user-submitted photo in Google Earth is found to have inappropriate content, any user may “Report a Problem” (via a link in the lower-right corner), and request to have the image blurred or removed.

Yes, Google Earth is integrated with Google Classroom via a ‘Share to Classroom’ button in the Sharing dialogue, where the teacher or student will then be prompted to create or answer an assignment, sharing the link to Earth as part of the task.

If enabled in Google Earth Settings, it is possible to upload a KML file from Google Drive to view within Google Earth. This feature is currently in Beta mode and does not fully support all KML file types.

A number of the Earth Voyager stories contain embedded videos that are hosted on YouTube. All of the videos are educational in nature, curated by our partners, and contain no ads or related video links. The videos open directly within the Earth Voyager platform and will not redirect to YouTube.

If signed into a G Suite account, the videos will only play if the G Suite Administrator has enabled YouTube.

Yes, if YouTube is blocked in your school the YouTube videos will also be blocked within Earth.

Right now it is not possible to author tours within Google Earth on the web. However, you can use Google Tour Builder and My Maps for content creation that can then be visualized on Google Earth.

Learn more by exploring this website and the resources section. If you have additional questions, reach out to our Help Forum, and be sure to include "Google Earth for Education" as your topic.

Google Earth is built from information that is available from a broad range of providers, including public, government, and commercial sources. The same information is generally available to anyone who licenses or purchases it from these sources.

The satellite imagery within Google Earth is comprised of both low and high resolution imagery depending on the overall user interest in that location. Our imagery is sourced from many different 3rd party partners. We work together to create an imagery refresh plan that will keep the imagery current over populated places and areas of cultural significance. Google Earth also contains a great deal of high resolution aerial imagery particularly over urban areas where local and federal regulations permit these collections.

3D imagery also requires special collects using specific aircraft mounted 3D cameras and is subject to federal and local collection and flight regulations. Check out this article for more details.

Yes. You can use our Feedback tool within the Earth menu to recommend an area for an imagery refresh. Please be sure your area of interest is in the center of your screenshot when submitting your feedback and use the text "I would like to recommend an imagery refresh" in the feedback window.

We compile these requests to help us develop our imagery plans, as user interest is very important in determining which areas we want to refresh and how often. Please keep in mind that the imagery collection and update processes can take several months to years and that these refreshes are done on a best effort basis. Also, factors such as imagery availability from our vendors as well as cloudy weather can delay imagery refreshes. Many areas of the world are habitually cloudy, so we have to be patient with collection realities along with our Earth users.

No, Street View imagery is not live (or real-time). It is usually several months to several years old.

To discover when Street View imagery was captured, you can use Google Maps on the desktop. Enter into Street View mode with Pegman, and you will see the month and year the image was captured in the lower-right corner of the display.

The satellite and aerial imagery in Google Earth is not high resolution enough to see individual people. In Street View imagery, you can sometimes see people in the image. For all Google Street View imagery, Google blurs faces and license plates to protect privacy.

In user-submitted 360 photos, users have the option to blur faces or other features in their 360 photo, before they submit to Google Maps; however, they are not required to do so. Anyone can request to blur a face, license plate, or other feature by clicking on the “Report a problem” link in the lower-right corner of the Street View image.

We've joined up with some of the world's leading storytellers, scientists and nonprofits to bring the planet to life with Voyager, a showcase of interactive guided tours built to inspire people to explore the world. The stories in the ‘Education’ category of Voyager have been created by individuals and organizations that have a long history with Google Earth and map-based storytelling and are passionate about creating interactive educational experiences. There are also supplemental learning activities and lesson plans associated the ‘Education’ Voyager stories that can be found on the ‘Explore Earth’ page of the Google Earth Education website.

Google Earth works on Chrome, Android, and iOS.

We have launched a Google Earth Education website at http://www.google.com/earth/education, with classroom activities, inspiring success stories, and teacher tutorials to help educators learn about Google Earth and how they can easily use it in the classroom for projects or supplemental activities to their core lesson plans.

If you have more questions about Earth, please post your questions at the Google Maps & Earth Help Forum. If your question pertains specifically to classroom or education use cases, we recommend adding ‘Education’ into the title of the question that you post.