| It’s Friday, June 26, 2020, and time for a Virtual Field Trip to join us on our Field Trips please check out these Recommended Websites: If you’ve looked at these Field Trips what did you think of them and why? America’s Heartland  Age Range: 10 and up (Grades 5 and up; children with parental supervision) What a find! The America’s Heartland website is a companion to a magazine-style, half-hour TV series, and offers FREE video virtual tours of unforgettable places of agriculture across the USA. The videos have something of interest for all ages, but the study guides seem to be for older students about grades 5 and up. When you get to the site, you’ll see a menu of options that include: Agri-Tourism – Visit a Reindeer Ranch, Bison Farm, and Horse Park. Animals – See an Emu Farm, Chicken Ranch, Cattle Ranch, and Duck Farm. Aquaculture – Learn about harvesting Crawfish, Abalone, and Trout Farming. Fruits and Nuts – Take a virtual tour of Strawberry, Kiwi, Mandarin Orange and Walnut Farms. Specialty Products – Learn about Maple Sugaring and visit farms that grow Mushrooms, Truffles, Goat’s Milk Soap, and more. Vegetables – See how Carrots, Iceberg Lettuce, Corn, Chili Peppers, and Spinach grow. Simply click on the topic of interest and a new page opens with a menu of short video tours of agri-products in that category. Each product offers a free downloadable “Study Guide” in pdf, a brief story synopsis with additional resources, and the video tour. You’ll also find videos about careers in agriculture, environmental stewardship, food science, organic food production, and agri-business technology. This is a terrific, informative, multi-media resource! |
Recommended Website: Tour: M.C. Escher – Life and Work Age Range: All (All grades; children with parental supervision) The National Gallery of Art sponsors this site that offers a virtual tour of the artwork of M.C. Escher. If your students have studied math tessellations they may have been introduced to some of Escher’s work already – as he used patterns of interlocking forms and architectural mazes in his artwork. He also created unusual spatial effects by drawing a picture from different perspectives, for instance, looking up and down at the same time. Escher really contributed to the idea of metamorphosis drawing where one shape or object turns into something completely different. This tour offers examples of all of these aspects of his work and most kids will find the “morph” prints and drawings especially fascinating. When you get to the site you can read the “Overview” for a biography and explanation of Escher’s work. Then click on the right arrow to view all of the many works in this virtual gallery. Each piece of art comes with a text explanation that helps the viewer to appreciate what they are looking at. Enjoy! |
Recommended Website: Henry Morrison Flagler Museum
Age Range: All (All grades; children with parental supervision) Enjoy a virtual tour of the Henry Morrison Flagler Museum in Palm Beach, Florida with this website. The 75-room, Gilded Age mansion was built as a wedding present to Henry Flagler’s wife and was their winter retreat until his death in 1913.
Use the right side bar menu to navigate to the different floors and rooms:
- Whitehall Facade
- Grand Hall
- Library
- Music Room
- Courtyard
- South Hall
- Billiard Room
- Grand Ballroom
- Hotel Addition
- Breakfast Room
- Dining Room
- Drawing Room
- Flagler-Kenan History Room
- Colonial Chamber
- Bedrooms
- Silver Maple Room
- Lace Exhibit
- Yellow Roses Room
- Servants Room
- Morning Room
- Flagler Kenan Pavilion
Images, texts, and audios provide an overview of each room. When done visiting the rooms, hover over the “Exhibits” link in the top menu to keep your museum tour going.
In the 2nd, lower upper menu, choose “Teacher Resources” to find Newspapers In Education tabloids and other guides to use to supplement your tour.
Add this website to your list of stops when studying not only the Gilded Age, but also the history of Florida.
Recommended Website: Museo Galileo Virtual Museum
Age Range: 8-18 (Grades 3-12, with parental supervision) With the aid of this website, visit the Museo Galileo Institute and Museum of the History of Science in Florence, Italy from your home.
Select from the following ways to explore the exhibits:
- Rooms – Take a room-by-room virtual tour of the museum.
- Objects – Search through the alphabetical list of objects.
- Videos by thematic area – Watch videos describing various objects with a related theme.
- Videos alphabetically ordered – Choose objects from the alphabetized list of the videos.
- Biographies – Learn about the inventors and creators of the objects in the museum.
There is also a glossary and downloadable catalog available to enhance your studies.
Once you have decided how you would like to browse the virtual museum, select your object of interest to learn more through text, images, and videos. There are thousands of interesting exhibits to examine, so be sure to bookmark this one to come back to often.
Recommended Website: Scholastic Global Trek
Age Range: 8-13 (Grades 3-8, with parental supervision) Virtually travel the globe to 35 different countries from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe with this website created by Scholastic.
After students select their destination, they receive a suggested itinerary that provides links to information about the country:
- Background
- Guided Tours
- Meet the People
Within those informative pages are other links to outside websites for a deeper exploration of a country. Students can create an online “Travel Journal” to record notes about what they have learned and then print out their journals.
With this website, students will expand their knowledge and understanding of the people, places, and environments of the countries of the world.
Recommended Website: The Secret Annex Online
Age Range: 11-18 (Grades 6-12, with parental supervision) A sub-site of the larger AnneFrank.org website, presented by the Anne Frank House Museum, interactively wander around the Secret Annex where the Frank family, the van Pels, and Fritz Pfeffer hid from the Nazis for more than two year.
When you arrive at the website, you can “Step Inside” right away, or you can scroll down to the 3D image of the house and annex. Toggle between Front Section and Secret Annex. The rooms you are able to visit and learn about include:
- Prinsengracht 263
- Warehouse front
- Warehouse back
- The chestnut tree
- Front office
- Back office
- Staircase
- Kitchen
- Toilet
- Private office
- Stockroom
- Attic
- Moveable bookcase
- Entrance
- Otto, Edith and Margot’s room
- Anne and Fritz’ room
- Bathroom
- Hermann and Auguste’s room
- Peter’s room
- Attic
Click on any of the rooms to view it and learn more about it. Be sure to have your sound turned on to hear explanations, narrative and commentaries of the various rooms. Use your mouse to navigate through the rooms.
When you are finished exploring the hiding place, click on the box in the top right corner and click to learn more:
- Who Was Anne Frank
- Video Diary
- The Diary
- The Timeline
- The Main Characters
- Go In-Depth
- And more
This fascinating interactive presentation filled with interesting audios, videos, texts, and images gives visitors a real feel that they have stepped into the world of Anne Frank and her housemates.
Thnak you,
Glenda, Charlie and David Cates
