Virtual Field Trips
How can you use virtual field trips to enhance student learning?
Virtual Field Trips:
Atlanta Zoo Panda Cam - Live cam of giant pandas.
Boston Children's Museum - Visit all three floors of the Boston Children's Museum.
Cincinnati Zoo Home Safari (Weekdays @ 2pm on Facebook Live)
Discovery Education - Visit some of the world's most iconic locations for rich and immersive learning experiences.
Earth Cam - Animal Cams - View animals from around the world.
Farm Food 360 - Immerse yourself in Canadian farm and food tours.
Google Arts & Culture - Tour over 1,200 leading museums and archives who have partnered with the Google Cultural Institute.
Google Earth (Voyager) - Learn about out world through interactive guided tours, quizzes, and layers, and street view.
Great Wall of China - Visit China's most famous attraction, the Great Wall of China.
Houston Zoo - Live cams and videos of your favorite animals.
Mars - Explore the surface of Mars recorded by NASA's Curiosity rover.
Monterey Bay Aquarium - Experience the wonder of the ocean.
San Diego Zoo Cams - Live cams and videos of your favorite animals.
Smithsonian National Zoo Cams - View giant pandas, lions, elephants, and a naked mole-rat.
Yellowstone National Park - Explore some of the main attractions around the park.
Using this tool to effectively enhance online learning:
Plan your lesson around the 5 Es:
Engage - What activating question or problem will you pose to build up excitement about the trip?
Explore - How will students use the virtual platforms to explore places around the world?
Explain - Design opportunities for students to explain what they’ve learned during the trip.
Extend - What additional questions or research will students complete following the trip? How can we extend learning beyond the trip?
Evaluate- How was the trip successful to support student learning? Have students share self-reflections. What challenges did they face, and what could you try differently next time?
Using this tool across content areas:
There are several ways to use this tool across the content areas. Explore this resource shared by BCIU for some great ideas and suggestions for using Virtual Field Trips across the content areas!
Some Additional Content Area Suggestions:
English Language Arts - Have students journalling the processes of animals or creating stories around real locations they've observed in a virtual field trip.
Social Studies/History - Have students visit historical locations to observe and draw conclusions about how they think a historical location has changed over time.
Science - Have students conduct observational studies of animals or analyze the habitats that zoos have in place for them, then compare them to natural habitats and invent improvements.
Math - Have students observe historical locations and build smaller models 'to scale' or have younger students observe shapes as they occur in nature or in artwork in museums.