Virtual Field Trips

We all wish we could take our students on field trips for every new topic, unit, or concept learned.  Unfortunately, field trips aren’t free and we are limited on what we can spend on field trips. Lucky for us, virtual field trips are a low cost alternative that can still be interactive and engaging for students.  Virtual field trips allow students to explore new places anywhere in the world from right there in the classroom! There is quite a bit of preparation that will need to be done before a virtual field trip can take place. 

There are multiple different options for creating a virtual field trip experience for students. One option is Google goggles, a free image recognition app. When the user takes a photo, the app will generate information of the place or object in the photo.  For example, if students were to use a photo of the White House, the app would give information about the White House. Another option for virtual field trips is Field Trip Zoom. This is a website that live streams different field trip locations. They have a live event schedule on their website that gives a variety of options on different days.  This website has a one month free trial, but has a monthly fee afterwards. Another virtual experience website is Discovery Education. In correlation with the Discovery Channel, this website provides a variety of virtual tours and live streams based on different content areas. Prices vary depending on what the user is interested in purchasing. A full subscription is typically $50 per student.  For those with no budget to purchase subscriptions, there are many free virtual tour videos online. It is recommended that the teacher watches each video in full prior to streaming for the class, to ensure the content is student friendly and on task with the learning target. As with any lesson, it is important to pick a standard first and find a virtual experience that will align with that standard.  Then, you must consider student learning objectives, assessments, and accommodations. The following video is a virtual field trip to the Amazon Rainforest.