I still work with too many teachers that are reluctant to jump into the online learning world with their students because they don’t know how, don’t know how to make connections with classrooms or experts, and other various reasons.
So here is a chance to jump in to Google Hangouts or YouTube in your classroom. Nature Works and The Nature Conservancy are offering to take you and your students on a virtual field trip to the Grasslands of Africa on February 5, 2015, at 12 pm ET. The Nature Conservancy’s lead scientist in Africa will be teaching the science behind how people and nature can work together. You can learn more about the virtual field trip and sign up to participate here.
This is the first in a series they are offering aimed at students in grades 3 – 8. You and your students can watch the event live using Google Hangout On Air on the Nature Conservancy’s Google + Channel: https://plus.google.com/+TheNatureConservancy The host of the Hangout is Tyler DeWitt, science teacher – his TED talk on making science fun.
or live streaming on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7DzF7EQzd8
or if you can’t make the timing work to see it live, it will be available later to watch on their YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUJMHqab_uJsqNZiwfNyg8w
Here is the description of the program from Nature Works and the Nature Conservancy:
The Deserts and Grasslands of Africa
Science and geography, grades 3-8
Thursday, February 5, 2015, 12:00 noon Eastern Time, on YouTube (40 minutes)
Join The Nature Conservancy, PBS LearningMedia, and field scientist Charles Oluchina for a live virtual field trip to Africa to learn how people and nature work together. Your students will visit Burkina Faso and learn how one African farmer invented an ingenious method to help restore forestlands that had been lost to desertification. Then they’ll head to Kenya to learn about the importance of grasslands and how ecotourism has benefited both the people and Kenya’s majestic wildlife. Finally, you and your students will get a firsthand look at a PBS LearningMedia collection of videos, digital games and educational resources from the new PBS series EARTH A New Wild.
So if you’ve been looking for a way to utilize powerful online tools like video-conferencing here’s your chance.
Related Resources for teachers:
- Farming the Desert: Science lesson
- Farming the Desert: Social Studies lesson
- The Value of Ecotourism
PBS LearningMedia’s full collection of educational resources for EARTH A New Wild, a television series.
Learning is messy!
Hi,
I really enjoyed reading your post. I like how you are providing the information teachers need in order to take this virtual field trip to Africa. I believe that it is very important for teachers to include online learning in their lesson plans. Do you know when they will be offering the second series?
-Heather
Hello Mr. Crosby,
My name is Paige Inman and I am currently enrolled in a Micro-computing Systems course at the University of South Alabama. Each week we are assigned a teachers blog to read, comment, and later summarize on our own class blogs. I intend on being an elementary school teacher and fully embracing the use of online learning in my classroom. Do you think that future educators will be more willing to use resources such as these as opposed to educators that have been in the field for some time?
I had never heard about a virtual field trip until I read about it in this post. This is something I want to become more familiar with in order to utilize it in my future classes. I think it is incredible that students can be exposed to experiences such as these and never have to leave their school. I appreciate that you included a number of links throughout your post so that all the information was easy to find and navigate. I look forward to reading your future posts.
Paige Inman
@Inman_Paige
Hello Paige – I do think educators will be more willing to use these resources in the future. 1) because they really don’t have a choice – this is where many are going for their learning and they are not going to wait for teachers to get there … it is embrace these new learning tools or become increasingly irrelevant. 2) School districts and society in general have been running scared of these new technologies because of the way they have been reported in the media and just a lack of understanding how they work and how they can be utilized powerfully in relative safety. That is changing … slowly, too slowly, but we seem to be approaching an inflection point where the safety concerns, technology savviness, perception and understanding of the powerful learning tools we have available (often for free) and understanding we can’t stop the inevitable are coming together. Teachers, educators in general are very late to this party … both experienced and newbies … so far that hasn’t made much difference, but you ask about teachers in the future … so yes I think future teachers will be using these resources more … but as much because they won’t have a choice as any other reason.
Thanks for your comment!
Brian
Mr. Crosby,
I really enjoyed finding out about the ability to take a virtual field trip! That sounds like a great way to incorporate technology into the classroom. I think it is a great way to present information to students in a fresh and vibrant way. What is the hardest part about using these resources? And are all teachers open to this new idea?
Thank you,
Kristina