Examples activities include digital walks along The Great Wall of China and a scrollable deep sea dive. These activities are also known as “online field trips” and “digital field trips”. And students don’t even have to be in the school building — virtual field trips are also a great option during periods of remote learning. Imagine driving through a desert 250 million years ago, watching dinosaurs graze and roar all around you. Imagine flying through outer space, exploring distant planets that humans have never before set foot on.
This interactive tour of Ellis Island lets students explore places like the Baggage Room and the Stairs of Separation through short stories, historical photographs, videos, and audio clips. There are so many amazing online options what is virtual reality in education when it comes to zoos that we couldn’t narrow it down to just one. Most zoos have live webcams in some of their most popular exhibits, such as the KC Zoo Polar Bear Cam and the Giant Panda Cam at Smithsonian’s National Zoo.
Virtual Safari
Beyond the Battle Field is a virtual field trip for grades 2-8 hosted by Lauren Tarshis, author of the I Survived historical-fiction series for kids. Students will meet a museum educator as well as the museum curator, and explore artifacts and documents from the American Revolution. Plus they’ll hear the stories of teens who served during the war. There’s also a Classroom Kit available with a vocabulary list and discussion questions by grade level.
You can also contact your local zoo directly to inquire about facilitated virtual tours and school group discounts. The star of the show is the behind-the-scenes tour of the Johnson Space Center. Kids can learn about the most recent Census and how census data is collected and used. This virtual field trip also features interviews with subject matter experts and an interactive challenge.
Collaboration Benefits of Virtual Field Trips
Thus, virtual field trips can be a powerful force for equity in education. With Access Mars, you can see the actual surface of Mars, recorded by NASA’s Curiosity rover. And if your kids liked that, check out this 4K tour of the moon. These may go down in history as some of the best virtual field trips your students get to experience. Livestream cockpit tours make thrilling virtual field trips for high school students. While airline regulations call for restricted cockpit access, you may be able to find a private pilot willing to give your students a Skype tour of the craft.
Nova’s online adventure “Secrets of Easter Island” delves into the mystery with a virtual tour. This virtual experience of George Washington’s home is incredibly well done. Enter the different buildings—from the opulent mansion to the chilling slave quarters—and click on different items for video and text explanations. This living-history museum provides a look into life in an early American community.
Digital Tour of the Van Gogh Museum
Your students can uncover hard to find productions and learn about American theatre history too. Broadway HD offers a one week free trial, as well as monthly and yearly subscription options. The Monterey Bay Aquarium hosts live cams for animals, including sea otters, penguins, jellyfish, https://www.globalcloudteam.com/ and sharks. Aquarium employees narrate during feeding time, so for maximum engagement consider tuning in during mealtimes. The aquarium website also offers free online classes for ages ranging from kindergarten to high school, resources for teachers, and crafts and printables.
- It’s important that students see themselves represented in their coursework and that they learn about subjects relevant to their own history and culture.
- Booking a tour gives your class access to a guide for one hour, and your class will view three to five famous works and participate in an ongoing Q&A session.
- You can’t visit The Louvre without seeing the Mona Lisa, so check out their immersive Mona Lisa experience available in the app store.
- The Louvre is one of the most famous museums in the world, but many people will never visit in person.
- Let’s dive into each of these types of benefits in more detail.
- You can have your pick of dairy farm field trips, but we like this one from the Dairy Alliance and this one from Stonyfield Organic.
You can plan a tour of foreign homes so that your students can learn how everyday life differs around the world. Many other field trips are theoretically possible, but would be prohibitively expensive for the vast majority of people. You could, for example, take a classroom to the Martin Luther King, Jr., memorial as a Black History Month activity. But unless you live in Washington, D.C., taking your students to a distant museum would likely be too expensive. Virtual field trips allow classrooms to visit a wider range of destinations from the comfort of their own school building.
Google Arts & Culture
Instead of organizing a virtual trip yourself, you can assign the planning to your students. Every participant can design an itinerary by using Google Tour Creator. A living room might seem like an odd choice for a virtual field trip, but a living room located across the globe is as fascinating as any other destination.
Next, check out our list of games to play on Zoom, this list of Google Meet games, and this one with online art classes. You can do online career tests too, or plan a virtual take your child to work day. You and your students can also check out Dollar Street for a strong visual map of how people live around the world. Through Stellarium Web, kids can explore over 60,000 stars, locate planets, and watch sunrises and solar eclipses. If you enter your location, you can see all the constellations that are visible in the night sky in your corner of the world.
The Johnson Space Center
The guides already mapped the path and prepared the presentation; you only need to book the tour and show up with your class. Most children dream of the day the teacher announces a field trip to Disney World. Many other zoos stream live animal webcams that you and your class can watch.
This virtual tour has four scenes available (you have to pay to get access to all 14). The “Museum of We the People,” the Constitution Center serves as a “headquarters for civic education.” Check out the Interactive Constitution section, and be sure to watch the virtual tour. The crew here at TeamBuilding recently embarked on a virtual tour of Black Broadway in Washington DC and an online Harry Potter tour of Edinburgh, Scotland.
Under the Sea Visit
Topics include nutrition, math, states of matter, forces and properties of water, and more. From virtual cockpit tours to online historical sites to do-it-yourself options, here is a list of ideas for virtual field trips to captivate and educate students. In addition to the inclusivity benefits mentioned earlier, educational VR also makes field trips accessible to a wider range of students.
