With the money you save on transportation and admission, you could even hire a beloved Disney character to pay the class a visit. Extended reality, broadly speaking, refers to the many forms of immersive experience included in the metaverse. Extended reality is the space where the physical world and the digital world overlap.
They noted that virtual field trips might be especially appealing in STEM fields, because they avoid the safety hazards and high costs of using real lab equipment. Kai XR, for example, offers a variety of VR field trips related to health and science, including an immersive tour of the human body and a field trip in which students witness a volcano explosion. However, the researchers also pointed out that virtual field trips have potential for social studies, the arts, and many other subjects.
Discovery Education
While virtual trips may not let students see otters float, elephants play, and lions strut up close, a digital tour allows for more intimate behind-the-scenes access. Lastly, virtual field trips have the unique benefit of being more climate-friendly than many in-person field trips, which often require students to travel on greenhouse gas-emitting buses. Some researchers argue that this makes virtual field trips especially what is virtual reality in education beneficial for climate change education, which can provide educational benefits without harming the planet. One reason virtual field trips are so helpful in education is that they allow you to visit far-off destinations that would otherwise be totally inaccessible. All the money in the world won’t let you take an elementary school classroom to the top of Mount Everest or make it possible to tour the solar system.
You can also supplement the trip with assignments and fun games. Virtual field trips are class outings that take place online, via platforms like Zoom, Google Street View or websites. While some of these activities consist of pre-recorded tours and videos, the best options tend to involve live video feed and student interaction with guides.
Engagement Benefits of Virtual Field Trips
Take your students on a virtual field trip of a recycling center and a modern landfill. Plus, there’s a full-on curriculum that includes lesson plans, take-home handouts, and more. You can have your pick of dairy farm field trips, but we like this one from the Dairy Alliance and this one from Stonyfield Organic. Farm Food 360 gives students the opportunity to immerse themselves in Canadian farm and food tours—from raising pigs to making milk and cheese. We’re also loving these virtual egg farm field trips from the American Egg Board.
Travel back to the 17th century with options for free, on-demand, digital resources or a live, 1-hour virtual school program led by a Plimoth Patuxet Contemporary Indigenous Museum Educator. There are also options for virtual hands-on history workshops, including Wampanoag Pottery and Write Like a Pilgrim. You have your pick of live webcams, but our favorites are the Georgia Aquarium’s Ocean Voyager webcam (wait for the whale shark!) and the “Jelly Cam” at Monterey Bay Aquarium (so soothing). Nickelodeon teamed up with two astronauts on the International Space Station to demonstrate how slime reacts to microgravity and had kids reproduce those same demonstrations back here on Earth.
The Farm
The British Museum’s online Museum of the World exhibit lets visitors view and sort artifacts based on time period, area of origin, and themes such as religion or trade. Each point on the timeline contains pictures, descriptions, an audio file, and links to related objects. The Louvre site also directs visitors towards a downloadable “VR Mona Lisa” app that provides an up close peek at the famous painting, and other video and at-home experiences. The Louvre offers high resolution, 360 degree tours of various exhibitions on its website.
The tour guide leads virtual visitors through spaceship crew pits and launching pads while explaining the process of becoming an astronaut. The tour puts a heavy emphasis on STEM education and directs teachers to resources useful for supplementary science and math lessons. A broader literature review from researchers at the University of Sao Paulo found evidence that virtual field trips are also helpful in K-12 education. They identified multiple studies in which head mounted display-based virtual reality education contributed to learning improvements. Immersive virtual environments also seemed to improve learning outcomes for students with special needs. Virtual field trips, though, empower classrooms to travel farther away than their nearby park or local museum.
Virtual Reality Rainforest Tour
She has 13 years of classroom teaching experience and a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction. A collaboration with over 1,200 leading museums and archives, Google Arts & Culture is an incredible storehouse of monumental works of art. For a look inside the iconic building, check out the 360° tour of some of the most historic rooms of the People’s House, from the Situation Room to the Oval Office. Let’s dive into each of these types of benefits in more detail.
- This virtual tour has four scenes available (you have to pay to get access to all 14).
- Your class can explore Egyptian antiquities, classic Italian paintings, and the remains of an underground moat, all without leaving the classroom.
- The aquarium website also offers free online classes for ages ranging from kindergarten to high school, resources for teachers, and crafts and printables.
- Many other zoos stream live animal webcams that you and your class can watch.
- But unless you live in Washington, D.C., taking your students to a distant museum would likely be too expensive.
- These activities are also known as “online field trips” and “digital field trips”.
Instead of escorting your students to a Broadway show, summon a Broadway stage to your classroom. Broadway HD has a library of hundreds of productions, including rare and obscure shows. While not in real time, most filmed productions on the site are of live shows.
Space Center Houston
The Nature Conservancy has a brand-new virtual field trip entitled “You’re the Scientist! Citizen Science, Frogs & Cicadas.” Check out their full library of videos on topics like climate change and water security. https://www.globalcloudteam.com/ The Louvre is one of the most famous museums in the world, but many people will never visit in person. By taking your class on a virtual tour of the Louvre, you save airfare and time spent waiting in line.
Students who have not yet visited Disney can see what the park is like, and those that have visited can point out sites and share stories. You can also include Disney history and lessons on the inspirations behind the attractions to make the tour more educational. Consider serving Disney themed snacks during breaks, and perhaps initiating a singalong during a music lesson.
Plimoth Patuxet Museums
Before diving into the benefits of virtual field trips, let’s start with a virtual field trip definition. After all, educational virtual reality (VR) is a relatively new phenomenon, and the metaverse is home to many different kinds of virtual experiences. Most of these virtual field trips are available to anyone, and are free to access, meaning your students can visit or revisit the sites anytime. To make your activity extra special, seek out guide-led, live, interactive experiences so that your students can hold conversations with an expert.