I’ve written a lot, both here in my blog (see A Lesson Highlighting Community Assets — Not Deficits) and in one of my books, about one of my favorite lessons.

In short, after students identify the qualities that are most important to them in where they want to live, they compare our lower-income school neighborhood with the Fabulous Forties, commonly considered the most wealthy area of Sacramento, and they decide which neighborhood is the better one. Typically, about 95% of my students choose our neighborhood (though last year the percentage was a little lower — about 80$ choose the school neighborhood).

We used to both do a tour of our local neighborhood and physically visit the Fab Forties, though visiting the wealthy neighborhood is logistically difficult, not to mention the stares we get from some of the people who live there and the police “drive-bys.” So, in recent years, we’ve instead done a Google Street View tour of that area. It works well, though using it manually can be a bit of a pain.

I’ve just learned about a new tool, though, that will make that virtual tour a bit easier.

With Google Maps Streetview Player, all you have to do is type in a beginning and ending address and it will take you on an animated tour automatically. You can also pause it whenever you want.

I’m looking forward to using it next month when we do the lesson…

Thanks to Google Maps Mania for the tip.