Interactive Video Conferencing: Science & Arts Field Trips
Author: Rick Phelan
Published: 09.30.14
Interested in increasing the number of field trips your class can take part in this year? Virtual field trips can help you achieve this goal. Video conferencing through Skype, FaceTime, and Google HangOuts have made it possible to connect with museums, laboratories, universities, and speakers using two-way interactive technologies. Engage your students with the world outside the classroom and involve them in activities that connect to grade-level learning objectives.
Some possibilities for virtual field trips that promote understanding in science and fine arts are shared below.
Visit Alaska virtually! Using interactive video conferencing equipment students can expand their scientific experience via live, multi-media presentations. Using inquiry-based learning, each 55-minute conference incorporates current research programs happening at the dynamic Alaska SeaLife Center. The materials for each program include a teacher's guide with specific background information and activity ideas, as well as supplies for hands-on activities. Potential programs from the Alaska Sea Life Center include:
- Bioluminescence
What mysterious animals inhabit the ocean’s depths? Investigate the bizarre adaptations of light-producers in the midnight zone.
- Scientists in Action: Veterinarian
How do vets care for stranded or injured marine animals? Get an inside’s view of the rehabilitation program.
- Cephalopods: Squid Dissection
Get your hands into a “head-footed” animal to learn more about cephalopods through dissection and discussion.
Challenger Learning Center e-Missions are simulated, problem-based, learning adventures delivered into the classroom via distance learning technology. Using the Internet and videoconferencing equipment, “live” scenarios are conducted in your classroom by a flight director at Mission Control from the Challenger Learning Center. Programs that support the integration of English-language arts, mathematics, and science include:
- Moon, Mars, and Beyond
The class is organized into five planet teams to help NASA locate and rescue a lost space ship that is orbiting one of the outer planets.
- Operation Montserrat
The Soufriere Hills volcano located on the small island of Montserrat is ready to erupt at the same time that a Category 3 hurricane is approaching. Teams monitor hurricane and volcano data to guide evacuation efforts.
Visit the Smithsonian American Art Museum without leaving your school. Free of charge, museum docents lead the study of U.S. history and culture using the museum’s extensive holdings of American art via real-time videoconferencing. Possible programs from the Smithsonian American Art Museum include:
- Civil War: A House Divided
The Civil War tested and consumed the country for more than four years. Many families were touched by death in the bloodiest conflict our nation’s history. How did the new technology of photography depict the country and the war? What do paintings and sculpture reveal of life during Reconstruction?
- Latino Art and Culture
Artistic achievements of Hispanic Americans from the 1860s to the present represent the diversity of the Latino community and reflect historical and cultural developments that have transformed American art.
Manhattan School of Music Distance Learning offers K-12, standards-based, music-related programs to schools throughout the country. National learning standards for the arts are incorporated into each program’s content and design, as are connections to social studies, language arts, and world history. Possible programs include:
- Journey through Jazz
A teaching artist trio takes students on a field trip through jazz. Come along for the ride as the musicians introduce their instruments (piano, bass, and drums) and their “roles” in the trio. Listen as they play and demonstrate common jazz styles.
- Music of the Cold War
At a time when two nations competed on all fronts, music was on the front line. Teaching artist Taisiya Pushkar explores how music defined the United States and Soviet Union during the Cold War, with live performance, rare news footage, and engaging discussion.
The North Central Ohio Educational Service Center’s s LEARNnco programs integrate STEM curriculum into the classroom. Forty-minute sessions were developed using the National Science Standards as a framework for fun interaction. They use hands-on group explorations in learning modules that complement classroom curriculums, personalized to the ages and ability levels of participating sites. Programs include:
- Life Science: Nutritional Chemistry
Using foods like marshmallows, cereal, and Jell-O, this session explores how food provides the essential nutrients needed to build and maintain our bodies.
- Life Science: Gross Science
Burps, farts, poop, pee, vomit, and boogers are part of this fun program studying the science behind some of the disgusting parts of the human body.
- Physical Science: Forces and Motion
Introduce your students to the forces of movement by performing experiments implementing Newton’s Laws of Motion.
- Physical Science: Electricity
Students explore the concepts and principles of electricity through activities on like/unlike charges, current flow, conductors, static electricity, and parallel and series circuits.
Experience, explore, and engage with the Denver Museum of Nature & Science without leaving your classroom through interactive distance learning video conferencing. Connect your students directly with scientists during live 45-minute broadcasts from field sites or research labs. Topics include:
- Virtual Lung, Grades 6-8
Explore lung anatomy as you observe a sheep lung dissection and take a close look at the structures that help in the O2/CO2 gas exchange in our lungs. Participate in activities and make observations.
- Virtual You’ve Got Guts, Grades 3-5
From saliva to bile and rugae to villi, explore the unusual and sometimes gross parts of your digestive system, a.k.a. your guts. Culminate your study as you observe the dissection of a frog digestive system.
Need Help with Video Conferencing?
Do you need help with the technology to make connections with these or other content providers? Schools in Sonoma County may contact Matt O’Donnell at modonnell@scoe.org or Rick Phelan at rphelan@scoe.org for assistance.
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