Virtual Class Fieldtrips

Fifth Grade Internet Flying Adventure
Grades: 5-6
Ongoing? No
Take off for adventure with your students without ever leaving the ground! Follow along with Mr. Beamer's fifth grade class as they tracked his flight from Indiana to the Pacific in an ultralight aircraft. Students helped him to build the plane and develop his daily flight plans. They alsoread daily dispatches of his travels. Resources include some excellent aeronauticssites, history of aviation links, and information about all of the places he visited.

Mrs. Mirissette's Class Visits the Center of Native Arts in Woolwich, Maine
Grade: 3
Ongoing? No
Visit this travelogue, complete with photos and student artwork, of a class fieldtrip to a Native American arts center.

Museum Connections
Grades: K-6
Ongoing? Yes
A telecollaborative project, Museum Connections takes students on a journey to the past through museums to learn about the world and themselves. The homepage provides a list of essentials about the past to answer while completing the project. Your and your students’ role in the project can be as simple or complex as you desire. The sidebar to the left provides a list of participating schools; to view various projects, click on the name of each school. Each class chooses a particular period of the past to explore. Some schools create virtual museums while others visit actual museums. If you are interested in participating, email the project coordinator at the address provided.

Prairie Journey 2000
Grades: 3-12
Ongoing? No
This site houses prairie-themed interactive games, exhibits, and travelogues, which were developed by students involved in a real-life, week long, field trip across the Canadian prairie. While students from only two schools actually traveled, they visited numerous partner schools! along the way, and all contributed to this meaty Web site. Teachers may glean some good ideas for extending field trips that their own students take, like creating a Jeopardy!-like game, developing an electronic quilt of trip-related images and poetry, and keeping a journal.

River Adventure
Grades: 5-6
Ongoing? No
Here's someone who gives teaching a good name! Mr. Beamer rides again! In his adventure beginning in September 2001, he canoed from Indiana to Memphis. Communicating with students though a daily log via email, they studied watersheds, calculated the budget, and maintained a public email Web site. Highlights of the site include an "ask the experts" section, marvelous links to river and canoeing sites, a children's river/canoeing bibliography,and student quizzes.

Stephen Avenue Virtual Tour
Grades: 2-4
Ongoing? No
A virtual field trip using student artwork, photos, and stories from a class trip. Students were each assigned a building on the tour of Stephen Avenue and then wrote stories and drew pictures of their experiences. This site is a great example of electronic publishing and models some excellent ideas to use with your students in fine arts, language arts, and technology. Be sure to “drive the bus” and see how animated students “visit” each building.

Virtual China 
Grades: 5-10
Ongoing? No
Imagine taking a large group of seventh graders on week-long biketrip through rural China or on a plane and bus tour of ancient Chinesecities! Hong Kong International School teachers did that each year from1996 through 1999. Students from around the world asked the young travelerspre-departure questions to answer during their trips. The result is a stunningtravelogue filled with photos, journal entries, and perspective writing.

A Virtual School Visit
Grades: 3-12 (and a number of adult ESOL classes)
Ongoing? Not sure
Low-tech, but high-teach site! This project is a straightforward way for students from around the world to learn more about each other. Classes are paired with each other to share information about their school and community. Utilizing the site’s simple Web page builder, classes use pictures and text to create an online tour of their schools. After looking at the other class’ tour, students spend the next couple of months emailing each other questions about the school, community and online tour (these exchanges are posted on the final Web sites.) Teacher resources include step-by-step instructions for carrying out the project (including a number of examples as models).

Virtual Trek in a Sumatran Rainforest
Grades: 6-8
Ongoing? No
Virtually experience a mega-field trip to a Sumatra rainforest. The 22 students from Saudi Arabia who actually went on the trip recorded their experiences through pictures and words for the rest of the world to enjoy.

Virtual Expeditions

The Albatross Project
Grades: 6-12
Ongoing? Yes
Here is an amazing opportunity for your students to engage in authentic scientific research! Students use this information-rich site to track albatrosses as they fly over the open ocean. They plot the positions using satellite data, email communication and the Pythagorean Theorem. They gain experience testing scientific hypotheses, and they see themselves doing work much like professional biologists. The site includes a wealth of lesson plan resources, background information and implementation tips for teachers. The site is sponsored by the NSF, so there is no cost to join.

California Missions Interactive
Grade: 4
Ongoing? No
Two bicyclists zipped through twelve historic California missions, and exchanged e-mail with a group of Palo Alto fourth graders as they did so. This site contains trip reports and photos that would help students around the world learn more about places they might not be able to "visit" otherwise.

Colonial Williamsburg Electronic Field Trips
Grades: K-12
Ongoing? Yes
(There is a fee required to participate in this project.) Colonial Williamsburg Electronic Field Trips offer participating schools interactive history lessons via the Web, teacher resources, live television broadcasts, and real time interactions with Colonial Williamsburg experts. The live broadcasts are featured on PBS or via streaming video and offer compelling dramatizations of historical events while the internet sources provide students opportunities to learn from primary documents and web-based information. The teacher lesson plans offer alignments with state standards, literacy lessons, and lessons on using primary sources in research. Students also have the opportunity to send an email and receive a reply from an historical figure. The site offers a chat room and discussion board for interaction among students at all participating schools.

Connecting From the Ice
Grades: 6-8
Ongoing? No
Youthful awe and science ooze from this site. Here you'll find dozens of e-mail exchanges between a group of Maryland middle schoolers and apair of friendly s! cientists in Antarctica.

Footsteps to Freedom
Grades: 3-7
Ongoing? No
In this TIES research project about the Underground Railroad in the U.S., students explore the difficulties and successes of those who assisted slaves travelling the Railroad. In addition to lesson plans for teachers, activities in this project include interactive Web pages and online discussions with experts. Students have the opportunity to contribute to actual research data to an ongoing national commemorative project. Subscription rates (per project) for non-members are $125 per class or $475 per school.

Global Online Adventure Learning Site
Grades: 3-8
Ongoing? Yes
This is a rich site filled with stories and images of global adventure travelers. Their expeditions range from rowing across the Pacific to crossing the Antarctic. In addition to descriptions of their travel plans, routes, and equipment, many send journal entries as they travel which are posted to the Web site--a few of the families traveling include kids' journal entries. The "Classroom" link includes lesson plans (primarily topics for further study or discussion). Be sure to check out the "Classroom Expedition" link with its ecological "footprint" and "world pen pal" sections.

Imagine the Challenge
Grades: 3-12
Ongoing? No
Go on an awe-inspiring adventure across the Outback (and then some)! The Imagine the Challenge project followed the trans-Australian "Steps 2 Peace" run of Canadian David Adie. The purpose of the run was to inspire children to overcome challenges in their lives while raising funds for Children's hospitals. Students and teachers at a school in Calgary were in email contact with him – if a person had a question for David, he would email the students who might choose to include that question in the day’s communication. Questions and responses were linked to a map of the journey. Students were encouraged to create their own projects and challenges related to Australia and David’s run – examples of these are included. The site also served as part of an e-pal project matching both individual students and entire classes. Be sure to look at the annotated links to sites about running and Australia.

JASON Project
Grades: K-12
Ongoing? Yes
This comprehensive project utilizes lives satellites and Internetbroadcasts to bring real expeditions to students around the world. Memberswill have full access to lesson plans, professional development opportunities,and of course, the telefieldtrips.

Online From Jupiter 
Grades: 3-12
Ongoing? No
Through photos, actual field notes, scientist biographies, and on-line activities, students can explore (and vicariously experience) NASA's 1995 Galileo spacecraft mission to Jupiter.

Reach the World
Grades: 3-12
Ongoing? Yes
Reach the World links partner schools to the real-world global circumnavigation of the Makulu II, a 43-foot sailboat manned by a team of teachers and explorers who report back to students via email and satellite. This interactive relationship allows partner classes to design projects to be carried about by the crew. In addition to a wealth of pictures, route maps, and well-written weekly and monthly travel logs, the site includes a teacher center with lesson plans developed and implemented by partner teachers. Makulu II sails each fall.

Shadow A Swan Project
Grades: 4-6 or 10-12, depending upon the learning activity
Ongoing? Yes
This site is no ugly duckling! Registered classes (registration is free!) follow the flight of an individual swan on her migration from Alaska to California. Students use satellite data from radio transmitters and maps to track the collared birds and predict their next locations, and a bu! lletin board to collaborate with peers and experts as they track the birds' movements. Resources for teachers include detailed lesson plans for either grades 4-6 or 10-12. The site is information-rich and has many links for additional informationor to similar projects.

Shuttle-MIR Online Research Experience 
Grades: K-12
Ongoing? No
Scientists' biographies and field journals reveal the research conducted in space aboard the Mir station.

Sites Alive! Expeditions
Grades: 3-12
Ongoing? Yes
Sites Alive! connects students to academically credited field school expeditions. While students involved in Sites Alive! don't actually travel to the places they explore, they get as close as they can via the Internet--thanks to a comprehensive interactive, multimedia curriculum package. (Note: Schools must pay a fee to become part of this project.)

Track Wild Wolves in the Superior National Forest
Grades: 2-12
Ongoing? Yes
Here is an exciting activity combining geography and biology while helping students gain an understanding of the scientific research process. This wolf tracking project, sponsored by the Biological Resources Division of the US Geological Survey and the International Wolf Center, allows students to follow the locations of wolves via computer. It works like this: wolves are fitted with radio collars which a biologist then uses to track each wolf's location via aerial telemetry. The location information is shared with the International Wolf Center which posts the data on their website at www.wolf.org. Classes may then use a Superior National Forest map to follow the movements of the animal over time. Students look for patterns of movement to outline the pack’s territory and compare these to the movement of other packs. Background information on collared wolves and research results in the Superior National Forest is also available. This Web site offers an abundance of information on wolf biology and ecology, as well as how the International Wolf Center supports wolf survival through education.

Wandering with the Wolves
Grade: K-4
Continuing? No
TIES created yet another exciting science activity for elementary students - this time, the topic is wolves and their habitat. Enrolled participants took part in an 8-week-long project, which included lessons/activities and a "wolf-Jeopardy" question for the class to answer for each school day. In addition, teachers could ask wolf experts questions by email. An email distribution list also connected teachers with the support team and each other for additional ideas on ways to integrate wolf-related activities into their classrooms, which were geared to meet Minnesota science standards for the primary grades. The yearly fee for non-members was $125 per teacher or $475 per school.

WhaleNet Satellite Tagging Program
Grades: 9-12
Ongoing? Yes
Like the animal for which it is named, the WhaleNet site is trulyimpressive in size and in mission. The main activity for students hereis the STOP program, in which classes use the WhaleNet server to track taggedmarine mammals by satellite. Using the latest technology, students collaborate with researchers to collect, compile and share information about a variety of whale species and other marine life. Other programs allow students to collaborate with peers or scientists online, participate in research voyages, attend classes, or access a wealth of information about marine mammals. This is a "do not miss" site for science teachers, but has exciting activities for math classes as well. Be sure to check out the teachers' resource section!