Earth Viewer is a free, interactive app available on apple and Android devices. It allows students and teachers (all users) to view an interactive globe. Users can add cloud cover, rain, light, sun reflections, etc.

This application is confusing, and I wouldn’t recommend it for classroom use. It is available for Apple, but the app for apple is very different. The apple version allows users to go back 4.5 million years in history to see the formation of the crust, and how it has moved and changed over time. Earth can be rotated in any direction and zoomed in and out. There are also options to see the major geological events, biological events, mass extinctions, impact events, fossils, cities, and the latitude and longitude grid.

While the apple version seems useful for the classroom, the android version is complex, and poorly organized. Once the user had added an option to the globe, it is hard to get it removed again, so layers upon layers are added.

Use in the Classroom:

Android: I would only use this app as a globe, to look at perspectives.

Apple: With a lot of pre-teaching, this app could be used to reinforce ideas about plate tectonics, as well as other historical events.

Overall, its free, I might give my students some time to play with it, but I wouldn’t use it as a teaching tool!

Image credit: biointeractive, http://www.hhmi.org/biointeractive/earthviewer