Virtual Field Trips

For Week 2, our assignment was to research a website about "Virtual Field Trips". The website that I visited was very user friendly and perked my interest immediately. It is "http://www.thinkport.org/Classroom/trips.tp". This website is a online tutorial and learning forum that was created for distant students to learn about Maryland. The graphics are amazing; my first virtual field trip was to the Chesapeake Bay. I am 23 years old, and can honestly say, I do not know much if anything about the Chesapeake Bay. Virtual Field Trips were not accessible or even in existence when I was learning about Geography.

My Virtual Field Trip to the Chesapeake Bay was wonderful, easy, and insightful. I was able to learn about what is killing the bay grasses of the Chesapeake Bay by reading the facts, exploring the Bay myself, and working in a virtual lab! The website walked me through the scientific method of gathering information before entering the lab, and after my experiments, I was encouraged to write down my findings in my lab journal.

I found this virtual field trip to be a really neat and creative idea to learn about the Chesapeake Bay, without physically going there, or reading about it the traditional way, in a text book. As a younger learner, and still today, I am a visual learner. Reading a text book or listening to a lecture was not the optimal way for me to learn. These virtual field trips would have been exciting and beneficial to me as an elementary learner.

The more I learn and look into virtual field trips will be good for my teaching methods, and I feel that students as young as preschool and elementary school would greatly benefit and enjoy a virtual field trip!

Link to website: http://www.thinkport.org/Classroom/trips.tp