Nearly everyone who's opened Google Earth in the last decade does the same thing first: they search for their home. Home is how we orient ourselves—it's where we start from. This might mean a one-story craftsman in a Wisconsin suburb. Or a house made of reeds on a floating village in Peru.

Then we zoom out. We see our neighborhood, then our city, our province, our country, our continent, and eventually: our blue marble. Out in space, our planet looks impossibly small. But improbably, it’s home to all of us. On the eve of Earth Day, I'm reminded of something I've learned watching people use Google Earth over the years: Home is not just how we understand our place in the world—it’s a means to connect to something bigger than ourselves.

