Did you ever think that field trips would turn into a virtual adventure?
With the amazing powers of the internet, students and teachers can now visit a museum across the country without ever leaving the classroom. Let’s say you are teaching a class about Canada and want to show your students specific objects and details about the civilization of Canada. Now teachers can bring the Canadian Museum of Civilization right into their classroom! By going to http://www.civilization.ca/indexe.asp, a virtual field trip can be accomplished.
With the Olympics being played in Italy, why not teach a lesson about Ancient Olympics? Now it can be done with The Ancient Olympic Games Virtual Museum at http://minbar.cs.dartmouth.edu/greecom/olympics/.
Just think about how exciting students will be when they find out they will be going on a field trip!
Some of the different options available are:
• A Sun Virtual tour (http://www.michielb.nl/od95/)
• The Collection at the National Gallery of Art (http://www.nga.gov/collection/)
• The World of Benjamin Franklin (http://www.fi.edu/franklin/rotten.html)
• The Dead Sea Scroll (http://www.ibiblio.org/expo/deadsea.scrolls.exhibit/intro.html)
And for the college level students:
• The Napa Valley Wineries (http://www.napavalley.com/napavalley/maps/clickmap.html)
Although field trips are always fun and gives a break from the daily grind of classroom work, a Virtual field trip can bring new and exciting ideas to any classroom. This new and innovate idea of using the internet for education can bring a much deeper understanding of hard to understand subjects. Another benefit is the cost; many of the virtual field trip websites cost no money and no permission slip will be needed, as well as chaperones.
For more information and to see the available virtual trips, check out http://www.theteachersguide.com/virtualtours.html#Museums.