I decided to stay focused on my previous idea for this week's blog post. If you remember, last week I looked into ways to make science fun for all students in the classroom. This week I wanted to look at ideas for fun outside the classroom and how to bring otherwise-impossible field trips to your students without having them leave the school.
This is the first semester that I have really heard "virtual field trips" mentioned. At first I was confused about what that meant and how students were able to 1) participate and 2) get a lot of meaning out of them. However, after a quick Google search I was beyond impressed at what the options are for teachers when it comes to taking trips without leaving school.
Utah Education Network has a phenomenal site (http://www.uen.org/tours/fieldtrips2.shtml) with a lot of virtual field trips for classrooms. They have field trips in twelve areas including career, library, professional development, and foreign languages. I focused on the science area and found quite a few useful "trips" to take. They range from first grade cloud exploration to AP physics. They cover anything from rocks and dinosaurs to human hormones and virus basics. Plus, they are all pretty simple to navigate and can be done individually, in pairs, small groups, or even as a whole class.
The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago has kits that can be mailed to you for things that your students might do if they were to actually visit the museum. This is a great way for teachers to throw something into their science class that may not be feasible otherwise (for example, they offer a Live... From the Heart kit that contains material for an entire classroom including a DVD of an open heart surgery. Your students can witness open heart surgery without having to go anywhere!). Visit this site for more info on the open heart surgery kit: http://www.msichicago.org/education/field-trips/live-from-the-heart/ .
I know it's not science related, but this site (http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/white-house-101/) takes you on a virtual tour of the White House. Also, lonelyplanet.com has some awesome tours of every country you can imagine (here's an example: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thailand)!
This is only a small, small sampling of what's out there on the web for us to use in our classrooms. Virtual field trips are a great way to differentiate concepts for students and are so fun and engaging that the time flew by when I was looking through them! The best part is that if you can't find a field trip for your students to take that covers the content that you want it to, you can make one for your students in an evening :)
Virtual field trips: just another way to keep your science classroom fun and engaging for all students.
I had never looked into virtual field trips before, but they sound like something students would really enjoy! I thought the Utah Education Network site was great, definitely a resource I could use in a future classroom. I look forward so what you find as you continue your research.
ReplyDeleteThis is really, especially since our students are so technology driven these days. I know with budget cuts and time constraints that field trips aren't as feasible as they once were (or as often. This is exciting and as we saw today sometimes we can get things to use in our class for a small fee and time and perhaps link it to a virtual field trip.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the great share!