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All science teachers want to make sure their topic remains exciting, fun, fresh, and relevant. The last thing you want is to let science get stuck in a rut, clinging to pencil and paper, punctuated by a few lab experiments. It’s always nice if your science lesson plans include field trips.
Well, that’s one thing in theory. But how many times have you had the best “gang aft agley” ugly science lesson plans? Either your school schedule doesn’t allow half the class to go out for a full day on the day you want, or the weather decides not to cooperate; there’s no way you’re going to take your class to study the riverbed if it’s pouring with rain and a flood is likely to occur. Or you’re just not in the right place to take your students where they can look at, say, a forest setting (because you’re in the center of town) or coastal erosion (because you’re in Kansas and the coastline is multiple states). away).
This is where you can try to include something different in your science lesson plans: you can go on a virtual field trip. A virtual field trip is not the same as going on a real field trip and using all your senses: sight, smell, touch, hearing and even taste, but it is as close to the real thing as you can get. So while your science lesson plans shouldn’t abandon the actual field trips entirely (complete with jackets to pack and safety warnings, which are part of the fun and experience, as well as being a learning experience in their own right) own), you need to see how many virtual Field Trips you can fit in.
A virtual tour is not the same as watching a documentary video, or not at all. While some documentaries available as videos, DVDs, TV shows, or YouTube clips come very close to a virtual tour (the documentaries produced by the late Steve Irwin have some of his personal touch, oh my!), I don’t. are. A virtual field trip involves connecting with someone who works or lives near where you want to study (a marine biologist, a park ranger, a zookeeper) and using wireless technology to look around and (what’s really important) to ask questions of others. The experts.
Naturally, your science lesson plans for virtual field trips need a fair amount of pre-planning. You will need to get in touch with the right person, and you need to make sure that they have the tools at their disposal, and you also need to make sure that you have the right tools. You will need some way to communicate in real time. Teleconferencing tools are essential at both ends, but thankfully they’re getting cheaper.
It may be a bit surprising to find that park rangers and the like are quite willing to participate and guide these virtual excursions. Often, if students can see something fascinating in the park or zoo (or whatever) during a virtual field trip, they are more likely to want to visit that park and see it for real.
So yes, your science lesson plans should include real field trips, but they should also include the virtual field trips. And they should also include the more traditional documentary videos. The most valuable and affordable resource to enhance your classroom lessons continues to be educational videos and DVDs. So make sure you’re using video Correct and see the immediate benefits in your students’ engagement, retention, and test performance by clicking here. Are you using them as well as you could? Check out the free video Video in the Classroom to find out.