Google Arts & Culture

Google Arts & Culture provides free access to art, culture, and historical collections from around the world. The site is well-organized and easy to navigate. It allows users to explore by specific museums' collections or themes, and to filter by movement, artist, historical event, historical figure, medium, and more. Some resources can be browsed by geographic location on a map, by dominant color, or in a timeline, allowing students to easily compare works from the same time period. There's plenty here to explore with your family or class, from Impressionism to civil rights to fossils.

The site also includes the ability to tour famous sites and landmarks and visit outdoor art installations. Users can also visit many works inside the museums using Google's Street View. Some items include the Explore Connections option, which is almost like a two-dimensional stream of consciousness array, linking images by criteria such as location, material, style, time period, etc.

The site includes the latest news related to museums, collections, and events as well as nearby places to visit in person (with media of their collections). The site also includes links to interactive experiments that demonstrate the interplay between technology, art, and science. Beyond just exploring, users can "favorite" any of the resources on the site and easily access them all from the Favorites page. In addition, they can create different galleries of their favorited resources -- based on any theme they like -- and share those with others, which could align with a specific classroom activity or assignment.

Teachers will be specifically interested in the Favorites feature of Google Arts & Culture, which allows teachers and students to mark any of the resources for easy retrieval later. Users can then create custom galleries surrounding assigned topics, whether they be about certain people, art movements, or parts of history. Students can then use those as a portfolio or a backdrop for other school work. Teachers should also check out the Themes section, which features expertly curated resources, including readings. These resources may inspire lessons or units, or students could be invited to explore and choose one theme to use as a springboard for a research project. Also, make sure to check out the Nearby filter: It displays the collections closest to your region. This can be an excellent way to familiarize students with all the great art within their reach.