With school just around the corner for many of us, I wanted to mention a new feature of Google Maps that might be helpful for classroom teachers and those planning walking field trips. Google has recently updated their web based Google Maps to include walking directions. This new feature allows you to plan routes and estimate the amount of time a walk to your destination should take.
For example at Lewis Elementary, many of our classrooms take walking field trips within our neighborhood. In the example below I have outlined a route from our school to the Reed College Cooley Art Gallery, a popular destination for many of our classrooms. The results returned include the distance and the approximate time the walk to the destination should take. In addition you also can utilize Google Street View feature to see what your route will look like. This feature is available for cities where Google has provided Street View imagery.
