198: Take One of These Virtual Field Trips with your ELA Students

As I sat in the warm theater watching my son's sixth grade class recount their favorite memories of school last week, I couldn't help but notice how many of them involved a field trip. Probably 95% of the kids' recollections revolved around special, memorable events that didn't happen every week - a trip to Austria, a trip to the river, a trip to a kitchen space where they learned to cook a lunch and then eat it following a project-based-learning unit on restaurant design.

I remember field trips from my school experience too - to learn about wolves at Minnesota's Wolf Center in 5th grade, to hike through snowy fields and see the stars on a seventh grade overnight, to examine the inside of a mine on Minnesota's Iron Range when I got older.

A field trip is a powerful thing, and it can come in so many forms. Today, I want to share some ideas for field trips you can take without a bus, and without a budget. Because I know both can be hard to come by. But that doesn't mean you can't set up some truly broadening experiences for your students from right within your classroom walls.

Let's talk about virtual field trips, because there are a lot more options out there than you might think! Whether they're already curated online, waiting for you to design a webquest around them, or even shared in person over Zoom by a museum curator or an author in their studio.

Visit the sites mentioned in today's show...

Link: Holocaust Museum of LA Free Virtual Tours for Students

Native Knowledge 360 Education Initiative

Link: Google Arts and Culture 

Link: "Discover Civil Rights History," "Risking it All and Riding for Freedom," and "Sitting Down to Take a Stand."

Link: Globe Virtual Tour

Link: Nat Geo Experiential Learning

 

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