Google Earth KML data can be downloaded from many individual locations in the CD-ROM, or the entire dataset for a township can be downloaded as a single Google Earth zip file (.KMZ). With Google Earth installed, double clicking a KML or KMZ file should launch Google Earth and display the data automatically.

To load data from a Google Earth session that is already active:

1. Go to File>Open and click on "Open" Show Me
2. When the file dialog new window opens, navigate to the desired folder and file Show Me
3. Once you have found the correct KML or KMZ file, double click it to open it in the Google Earth Map Window (the KML files will open up the individual layers, and the KMZ file will open all Google Earth data for the township) Show Me
4. Once the file has loaded, Google Earth will automatically zoom in to the geographic extent of your data. Show Me

NOTE:Large datasets, especially those containing polygons, may impact performance on computers with marginal video RAM. Turning off these layers temporarily while navigating in Google Earth will greatly improve performance.

Layers in Google Earth behave like a stack, and the layers panel displays the available layers in a collapsible tree view, similar to the "folders" panel in Windows Explorer.

Here are some notes to help you work with multiple layers and features within layers:

1. Collapsed layers are denoted by a "+" sign, indicating that they can be expanded, while expanded layers are denoted by "-" sign to indicate that they can be collapsed. Show Me
2. Active (visible) layers are denoted by a checkbox. Clicking the checkbox toggles the layer's visibility on and off.
3. Layers may contain more than one feature. Expanding the layer view will allow access to individual features. Show Me
4. There are two types of descriptional information popup balloons: feature descriptions and layer descriptions.
5. Double click the layer name to display the layer description popup window. Show Me
6. Point features and some polyline and polygon features can have information points. Clicking an individual feature's information point in the map panel will display the popup description for that feature. Show Me
7. When features are clustered too close together for their information points to be clicked individually, Google earth will extend the information points away from the center (radially) so that the individual features are available to click on.