Students Travel Green with Virtual Field Trips.
(Great Barrier Reef, Australia)
US Students are visiting Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, practicing Spanish in Costa Rica, and checking out the USS Arizona in Hawaii. And they’re not even leaving the classroom.
According to a recent article in Christian Science Monitor…
“As of last month, more than 1,125,000 students have participated in virtual field trips organized through the CILC website alone. Some 150 institutions – from National Aeronautics and Space Administration to the Bronx Zoo – list trips on the site, and each month sees another three or four additions.”
Most schools use these ‘virtual field trips’ for cost and logistic saving reasons. Many probably don’t even consider that they are also traveling green. But they are.
2 Comments
I know that this is enviromentally safe and all but this really can not take the place of actually visiting the place you are studying. There is no comparison to reading about a place like Rome and actually visiting it.
Hi Richard, I agree that it would be a shame if students only did virtual field trips. It’s a great supplement but shouldn’t be the only way that they get to experience different places. But virtual field trips do, however, give many students opportunities that they might not otherwise have to learn and understand a place.