Online Field Trips: Enhance Your Classroom Curriculum

The Internet holds a variety of virtual field trips to engage students of all ages without the worries of distance, expense, or time constraints. These online tours can help students prepare for or follow-up after an actual field trip, enrich areas of study, or simply travel the globe and beyond with the click of a mouse.

The Arts


The Alcotts and Orchard House
http://www.louisamayalcott.org/alcottorchard.html
Website inviting visitors to learn about the Alcotts and their home, Orchard House, noted for being where Louisa May Alcott wrote and set her classic novel Little Women.

The American Museum of Photography Guided Tour
http://www.photographymuseum.com/guide.html
“A Museum Without Walls…for an Art Without Boundaries” – a virtual photography museum dedicated to educating, informing, and sharing great photographs. Featuring 5,000 images from early daguerreotype portraits to the works of Ansel Adams.

Carnegie Hall Games and Listening Guides, The Weill Music Institute
www.carnegiehall.org/orc/games-and-listening-guides
Instructive and entertaining modules including An Interactive History of African American Music, Carnegie Hall Animated History, Dvorak’s Symphony #9, and The Young People’s Guide to the Orchestra by Benjamin Britten.

The Cone Collection, The Baltimore Museum of Art
www.artbma.org/collection/overview/cone.html
A flash movie of the exceptional collection from the studios of Matisse, Picasso, and others, amassed by the Cone sisters. 

Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
www.metmuseum.org/toah
A chronological, geographical, and thematic exploration of the history of art from around the world, as illustrated by close to 7,000 pieces from the Metropolitan Museum of Art collection.

Matisse for Kids, The Baltimore Museum of Art
www.artbma.org/families/activities.html#matisse
Raoudi, Matisse’s perky schnauzer, in an online exploration of the 20th century master’s bold, bright paintings.

The Metropolitan Opera
www.metoperafamily.org/metopera/about/education/educatorguides/content.aspx?id=6652
Online introduction of opera with a backstage tour and a look behind the scenes at the Met. Explores common opera misconceptions and various performing arts careers. 

National Museum of Women in the Arts
www.nmwa.org/explore/collection-highlights
Expansive collection providing a comprehensive study of art by women from the 16th century to the present.

Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre
www.shakespearesglobe.com/about-us/virtual-tour

Tour of the theatre including the stage, yard, and middle/upper galleries, filmed during the run of The Merchant of Venice in 2007.

Smithsonian Video Tour with Ben Stiller
www.si.edu/visit/videotour
Tour featuring Stiller (who starred in the movie, Night in the Museum) with a sometimes-humorous overview of the 19 Smithsonian facilities in Washington, D.C.

The Vincent Van Gogh Gallery
www.vggallery.com
Website endorsed by the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam containing images of all the artist’s paintings, drawings, watercolors, graphic works, and letter sketches, as well as personal letters.

Waltee’s Quest: The Case of the Lost Art, The Walters Art Museum
walteesquest.com
An interactive adventure with Waltee, the cartoon lion cub mascot, as he explores seven imaginary worlds to discover the missing museum objects and return them to their rightful place in a virtual museum exhibition.

History


1492: An Ongoing Voyage
www.ibiblio.org/expo/1492.exhibit/Intro.html
Examination of the first sustained contacts between American people and European explorers, conquerors, and settlers from 1492 to 1600. 

Ash Lawn-Highland – James Monroe’s Home
www.ashlawnhighland.org/virtualtour.htm Tour of the home of James Monroe, our fifth president. Includes photos and descriptions of the interior as well as the plantation area.

Betsy Ross House – Philadelphia
http://historicphiladelphia.org/virtualbrh/
360-degree tour of various rooms, the upholstery shop, and courtyard at the birthplace of the American flag.
Cappella Sistina
www.christusrex.org/www1/sistine/0-Tour.html
Tour of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, featuring the wall paintings by various artists and the masterful art by Michaelangelo on the ceiling.

Colonial Williamsburg Tour the Town
www.history.org/almanack/tourthetown
Interactive tour exploring the Historic Area and Colonial Williamsburg’s properties, including historic buildings, historic trades, and things of interest to children.

The Constitutional Walking Tour of Philadelphia
www.theconstitutional.com/tour.php
A journey through America’s most historic square mile where the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution were created. Features more than 30 historical sites in the Independence Mall area, including the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, and the National Constitution Center.

Ellis Island Interactive Tour
teacher.scholastic.com/activities/immigration/tour
Interactive tour including first-hand immigrant stories, historical photos and films, and fascinating facts highlighting the central role this station played in the story of American immigration.

Ford’s Theatre – Washington D.C.
http://fords.org/sites/default/files/virtualTour/index.html
Tour of the theater, stage, Presidential box, exterior, and Petersen House where Lincoln died. Includes information on Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth.

George Washington’s Mount Vernon
http://www.mountvernon.org/visit-his-estate
A look at Washington’s home on the banks of the Potomac, and at America’s first hero and the world in which he lived.

Gettysburg Battlefield Interactive Virtual Tour
http://www.virtualgettysburg.com/vg/tours/index.html
Tour of significant points of interest in the park. Includes a brief overview of the three-day battle.

The Gordon-Roberts House 
http://www.gordon-robertshouse.com/index.html
Tour of this 1867 Victorian home in Cumberland. Photos and descriptions of the drawing room, sitting room, guest bedroom, day nursery, kitchen, servant’s room, and garden, showing how a family of the late 1800s lived, worked, and played.

Jamestown, Virtual
www.virtualjamestown.org
A digital research, teaching, and learning project that explores the legacies of the Jamestown settlement and “the Virginia experiment.”

National Women’s History Museum
www.nwhm.org/online-exhibits
Online exhibits include African American Women, Women in Education, Women in Industry, Women of Jamestown, Olympic Women, Women for President, more.

The National WWII Museum Virtual Field Trips
www.nationalww2museum.org/education/for-teachers/virtual-field-trips/virtual-field-trips.html
Guided tour by a museum educator that allows students to analyze maps, photographs, artifacts, posters, speeches, and songs as they explore the chronologies, strategies, motivations, and outcomes behind World War II history.

Roman Open-Air Museum
www.villa-rustica.de/tour/toure.html 
Tour of the open air museum created at the partially rebuilt ruins of a Roman villa constructed in southwestern Germany at the end of the 1st Century A.D.

The Secret Annex Online – Anne Frank’s Hiding Place
http://www.annefrank.org/en/subsites/home/
Tour of the house in Amsterdam where the Frank family hid during World War II. Includes audio, video, historical photos, more.

Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History Panoramic Virtual Tour
http://www.mnh.si.edu/panoramas/
Virtual room-by-room tour of the entire museum including hotspots for a close-up view of particular objects or exhibit panels.

Statue of Liberty National Monument Virtual Tour
www.nps.gov/stli/photosmultimedia/virtualtour.htm
Tour of Liberty Island to the top of the statue, choosing from 360-degree panoramas, videos, pictures, and sounds.

Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello
http://www.monticello.org/site/multimedia/tour-thomas-jeffersons-monticello
Tour of the estate of our third president, a philosopher, scientist, historian, and author of the Declaration of Independence.

Titanic Interactive
www.history.com/interactives/titanic-interactive 
Exploration of the history of the RMS Titanic with interactive features about the construction, the disaster, and aftermath of the sinking, including videos about famous and unknown passengers.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/
Virtual exhibitions include Rescue and Resistance, Children, Antisemitism, Aftermath, Camps, Propaganda, Documentation and Evidence, more.

The White House Virtual Tour 
www.pbs.org/wnet/whitehouse/virtual.html
Tour featuring some of the home’s most famous rooms and their vibrant history, along with great works of art and other items from the White House Collection.

Maryland


All Aboard for Cumberland
www.nps.gov/history/nr/travel/cumberland
Tour of Cumberland, the site of the first National Road, the western terminus of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal, and a center for the railroad industry, as well as stories of the town’s economic and residential growth, social community, and civic development.

Baltimore: A National Register Travel Itinerary
www.nps.gov/nr/travel/baltimore/index.htm
Tour featuring residential, commercial, industrial, and religious locations to introduce viewers to more than two centuries of history. Highlights 43 properties, all of which are listed in the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places, with detailed maps, photos, and information.

Historic St. Mary’s City 
www.stmaryscity.org/virtual tour/virtual tour.html
Virtual tour featuring the waterfront, a woodland Indian hamlet, the town center, and the lives of successful 17th century tobacco farmers at the site of the fourth permanent settlement in British North America and Maryland’s first capital.

Maryland’s Geologic Features
www.mgs.md.gov/esic/features/index.html
Overview of some of Maryland’s most notable landscapes and geologic features including mountains, valleys, waterfalls, rivers, dunes, islands, and cliffs. Features an interactive map.


Pride of Baltimore
www.pride2.org/education/index.php
Tour on the Pride of Baltimore II, the world’s most traveled historic tall ship and a reproduction of an 1812-era Baltimore Clipper privateer, to far-off places in Asia and Europe and to interesting places in Maryland.

Thinkport
www.thinkport.org/Classroom/trips.tp
Overview of more than a dozen topics including Maryland history, culture, Bay ecology, art, and math. Incorporates interactive stories, maps, games, timelines, and audio, and provides primary resource documents, ideas, and activities. Created by Maryland Public Television and Johns Hopkins University Center for Technology in Education with educators in mind.

Science/Technology


BioInteractive Virtual Museum, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
www.hhmi.org/biointeractive/museum/index.html
Exhibits on biological clocks, infectious diseases, cardiology, and neuroscience. Highlights the HHMI virtual labs and lecture halls where students learn about stem cells, evolution, obesity, cancer, genomics, neuroscience, infectious diseases, and immunology.

Catoctin Wildlife Preserve & Zoo
http://cwpzoo.com/zoo-map/
Short tour of various habitats and residents of the preserve and Zoo, home to 1,100 animals representing 319 species.

Forest Life, UPM
http://w3.upm-kymmene.com/upm/forestlife/index.html – lang=0
A trip deep into a forest in Finland to learn about forest sustainability. Features videos of forest life, pictures with information, and audio.

Moon in Google Earth
http://www.google.com/earth/explore/showcase/moon.html

Tours of landing sites, 3D models of landed spacecraft, 360-degree photos of astronauts’ footprints, and rare TV footage of the Apollo missions.

NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
http://virtualfieldtrip.jpl.nasa.gov/smmk/top/gates
Virtual field trip through our solar system and beyond.

National Aquarium in Baltimore
http://aqua.org/media/virtualtours/baltimore/index.html

360-degree tour of various areas in the Aquarium; photos of animal residents with descriptions.

Net Frog
http://frog.edschool.virginia.edu/Frog2/
Overview of all of the stages of frog dissection, from initial preparation to examination of internal organs.

Operation: Heart Transplant or How to Transplant a Heart in Nineteen Easy Steps
www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/eheart/transplant.html
A virtual operating theater, where users are given a scalpel and perform a heart transplant. Outlines all basic steps to give students an idea of what’s involved. Requires Adobe Shockwave.

Smithsonian’s National Zoological Park 
nationalzoo.si.edu/animals/webcams
A visit to the Zoo, home to 2,000 individual animals from nearly 400 different species including great apes, big cats, Asian elephants, birds, amphibians, reptiles, insects, aquatic animals, and small mammals. Almost two-dozen live web cams. Provides information about the specific animal and the species.
http://nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/PhotoGallery/default.cfm
A virtual visit to the Zoo through photos of its animal residents.

University of California Museum of Paleontology
www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/exhibits
Online exhibits include History of life through time, Understanding Evolution, Understanding Science, Tour of geologic time, and The Paleontology Portal.

Social Sciences/Geography

Grand Canyon Archeology Virtual Tour
www.nps.gov/grca/photosmultimedia/virtualtour.htm
Exploration of what archeologists found during the first major excavation to occur along the Colorado River corridor in nearly 40 years. Interactive 360-degree photos show archeologists at work.

Hawaii, Virtually
http://satftp.soest.hawaii.edu/space/hawaii/index.html

A trip to Kauai, Molokai, Oahu, the Big Island, and Maui for a guided tour that features many air and ground photographs; several tours of Kilauea Volcano.

Meet Me at the Corner
www.meetmeatthecorner.org
Educational, kid-friendly episodes uploaded every two weeks introducing kids to fascinating people from all over the world. Invites students to submit their own videos.

Mysterious Places
mysteriousplaces.com/tours.html
Virtual tours exploring sacred sites and ancient civilizations: Easter Island – Faces of Mystery; Mysteries of the Maya; Stonehenge; Mali – Malian Magic.

Newseum – Washington D.C.
http://newseum.org/virtual-tour/index.html
Photos and descriptions of areas in all seven levels of the Museum including exhibits and galleries as well as a look at Museum studios and theaters.

Taken On The Road: American Mile Markers
www.kodak.com/US/en/corp/features/onTheRoad/index.shtml
Tour follows a photographer driving in a straight line from the Statue of Liberty to the Golden Gate Bridge, his camera clicking at every mile for 3,304 miles.

U.S. Supreme Court Tour
www.oyez.org/tour
The Oyez Project, a multimedia archive source for all audio recorded in the Court; authoritative information on all justices and tour of portions of the Supreme Court building, including the chambers of some of the justices.

Welcome to Antarctica! – Center for Astrophysical Research in Antarctica 
http://astro.uchicago.edu/cara/vtour
A tour from New Zealand to McMurdo on the coast of Antarctica, to the center of the continent and the bottom of the Earth, the South Pole.

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