Digital and Virtual Field Trips

What kinds of virtual field trips are available online?

What trips can I explore with my students?

How can I integrate virtual field trips into my classroom?

map Although you'd love to take your class to Antarctica or Hawaii, it's not realistic. Instead, take your students on a virtual field trip. Use the following resources to locate virtual field trips. You can also do a search in Google for topics such as "wetlands virtual field trip".

Be sure to check out the Virtual Adventures project to learn more about exploring, using, adapting, and creating virtual field trips.

What's a Virtual Field Trip? It's a way to visit a place you can't go to in real life. Go to the Michigan 4-H Children's Garden Kid's Tour for a great example.

Read the article Cost-Free Travel with Virtual Field Trips by Roberta Devlin-Scherer (Technology Learning, September 1, 2003).

Read the article Get Outta Class With Virtual Field Trips from Education World.

Integrating Virtual Field Trips into the Classroom

There are lots of cool ways to use virtual field trips in the classroom. Apple Learning Interchange has lots of great examples.

Choose one of the following three virtual field trips to examine:

Read This Old Habitat from Apple.

Read Project E.R. Environmental Rescue from Apple.

Read and explore Science in Action from Apple.

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Specific Places

CARE
http://www.careusa.org/features/vfts.asp
Follow CARE workers on adventures around the world

Constitutional Walking Tour of Philadelphia
http://www.theconstitutional.com/tour.php

Estuary Field Trip
http://www.estuarylive.org/

Expeditions @ Field Museum
http://www.fieldmuseum.org/expeditions/

Explore the Pacific
http://goals.com/kyrnos/kyrnhome.htm

The First Thanksgiving
http://teacher.scholastic.com/thanksgiving/mayflower/index.htm
Follows the voyage of the Mayflower and like in America.

Geology of Mojave National Preserve
http://geology.wr.usgs.gov/docs/parks/mojave/mojaveft.html

GOALS: Global Online Adventure Learning Site
http://www.goals.com/Index.htm
Follows expeditions and family voyages

Iditarod
http://www.iditarod.com

Interactive Tour of Ellis Island from Scholastic
http://teacher.scholastic.com/immigrat/ellis/index.htm
An interactive tour of Ellis Island

JASON Project - no longer free (now subscription-based), however you can still get to a few of the past expeditions:

Journey North
http://www.learner.org/jnorth/

Lower Eastside Tenement Museum Virtual Tour
http://www.tenement.org/Virtual_Tour/index_virtual.html
http://www.thirteen.org/tenement/
Tour the history of this area of New York.

National Geographic Expeditions Online - dozens of online adventures

Interactive Learning Museum: Xpedition Hall
Great Barrier Reef Virtual Drive
Columbia River Virtual World
Earth Pulse - current projects and features

NASA Quest

Online Expeditions from GlobalSchoolHouse
http://www.globalschoolhouse.org/expeditions/

Passport to Knowledge

PBS

The Tallest, Biggest, Oldest Trees
http://www.bio.ilstu.edu/armstrong/bigtree/fieldtrip.htm
Page by page field trip with varied topics.

This Old Habitat
http://www.fieldmuseum.org/thisoldhabitat/
Visit habitats and learn about ecology.

US Trek - follow trekkers who explore history, culture, and current events

World War II Remembers
http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/wwii/ahf/life/index.htm
Explore life during World War II

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Virtual Exhibition

Australian Libraries Gateway: Online Exhibitions
http://www.nla.gov.au/libraries/resource/ex.html
Hundreds of exhibitions from librarys around Australia.

Australia's Oral History Collection
http://www.nla.gov.au/ohdir/

Links to Virtual Field Trip Websites

GeologyLink
http://college.hmco.com/geology/resources/geologylink/fieldtrips.html
Links to geology virtual field trips around the world

Internet Field Trips from Scholastic
http://teacher.scholastic.com/fieldtrp/science.htm
Topical approach to using Internet resources.
Also, check out Online Activities from Scholastic

Links to Virtual Field Trips from Pioneer Elementary
http://www.asd.wednet.edu/pioneer/barnard/sites/Education/VirtualFieldTrips.htm

Teacher Resource Center
http://www.glc.k12.ga.us/trc/cluster.asp?mode=browse&intPathID=3400

Virtual Field Trips from Georgia
http://www.glc.k12.ga.us/trc/cluster.asp?mode=browse&intPathID=5362

Electronic Field Trips
http://www.cesa10.k12.wi.us/dl/trips/index.htm

Homework Spot Field Trips
http://www.homeworkspot.com/fieldtrip/

Tramline
http://www.field-guides.com/trips.htm
website focusing on virtual field guides and field trips (not really "field trips" more like pathfinders

Virtual Field Trips
http://www.virtualfreesites.com/tours.html

Virtual Field Trips & Projects - SCORE
http://score.rims.k12.ca.us/virtproj.html

Virtual Field Trips from Utah Link
http://www.uen.org/utahlink/tours/
Take a trip or create a trip. (some are field trips and others are just pathfinders)
How to Create a Virtual Tour - shows how to use their tools for building one

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