Taking your Kids on a Virtual Field Trip

How Tech Is Changing the Museum Experience

What a great topictechnology changing the museum experience. With the advancement of technology, more and more museums are now offering virtual tours that make for great virtual field trips for your kids!

Museums are exploring digital and mobile technologies to enhance visitor experience. Initiatives go beyond technology within exhibits and installations, but also include more pervasive uses of tech to create interactive experiences for visitors throughout a museum, as well as remote experiences for those who cannot get there.

Taking a virtual field trip is a great way to enrich and enhance learning and gives you the opportunity to explore our world without ever having to leave the house. Students and parents can visit places and see things they would otherwise never see. And there are so many virtual trips out there that most likely you can find one that directly relates to what your kids are currently learning.

Here are some tips about how to get the most out of virtual field trips:

Take some time to review each URL before letting your kids explore to ensure that you are comfortable with the content of the virtual field trip.
Choose virtual field trips that relate to whatever your children are currently learning.
Begin and end the trip with a lesson or discussion to help them make the connection between the lesson and their virtual trip experience.
Lead your kids through the field trip as if you were heading to an actual destination.

Here are some virtual tours I found from The Teacher’s Guide. Feel free to leave a comment with your own favorite virtual tour destinations!

Tour The American Museum of Natural History
You can find 360 degree tours of dioramas, pictures, and video.

Tour an Ancient Roman Villa
In this virtual tour, you can see the villa from all sides and enter the inside rooms.

Tour The Collection at The National Gallery of Art
You can perform a search by artist, title, or subject.

Hall of Saurischian Dinosaurs and the Hall of Ornithischian Dinosaurs
Tour the exhibits form the fossil halls of the American Museum of Natural History.

The Butterfly Conservatory Virtual Tour
Tour exhibition highlights, butterfly cams, or the virtual tour.

Dioramas of the AMNH on Video
Video of narrated tours of the diormas at the American Museum of Natural History.

Alaska Brown Bear Diorama Virtual Tour
Explore this diorama in 360 from AMNH.

Wading Bird Rookery Dioram Virtual Tour
Explore this diorama in 360 from AMNH.

Museo Galileo Institute and Museum of the History of Science
The Online Catalogue of the museum presents the more than 1,200 objects on permanent exhibition through color images and detailed descriptions.

Holocaust Museum Tour
Find pictures, video, and art from the Holcaust Museum.

Agriculture in the Classroom Virtual Field Trip
Tour different types of farms to learn about agriculture.

Tour The Museum of Unnatural Mystery
Tour the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, learn about geology, and some strange things.

Online Exhibitions from the Natural History Museum in London
Explore art themes, botanical illustrations, and save images of your favorite exhibits.

Tour the Sistine Chapel
Explore the paintings on your computer.

Online Exhibits from Colonial Williamsburg
See restorations of paintings, examine types of currency, and explore colonial maps.

Explore Plimoth Plantation
Explore plimoth and interact with some of its people.

The Great Wall of China Virtual Tour
A 360 degree your of parts of the wall. You can advance on the wall as if walking.

Ancient Greek Artifacts
View paintings, sculptures, and artifacts. Some are in 360 degee view.

Yellowstone Park Webcams
Not a virtual tour, but they do have web cams from the park.

Virtual Gettysburg