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Virtual Reality Curriculum Guide: Experience, Immersion and Excursion in the Classroom

A framework for teaching with New York Times 360 V.R. videos, plus eight lesson plans for STEM and the humanities.

By Travis Feldler and Natalie Proulx

This guide is available as a downloadable PDF.

In 2015, The New York Times pioneered a new form of storytelling: virtual reality journalism. In an introduction to its first V.R. video, “ The Displaced ,” a documentary about three children who had been forced from their homes by war and persecution, Jake Silverstein, The New York Times Magazine’s editor, wrote:

We decided to launch The Times’s virtual-reality efforts with these portraits because we recognize that this new filmmaking technology enables an uncanny feeling of connection with people whose lives are far from our own. By creating a 360-degree environment that encircles the viewer, virtual reality creates the experience of being present within distant worlds, making it uniquely suited to projects, like this one, that speak to our senses of empathy and community.

Since then, The Times has created a series of 360-degree videos that transport users from their living rooms to far-flung places — from Antarctica to Ethiopia, the depths of the ocean to Pluto, back to the beginning of the universe and through Olympic history.

Five years later, V.R. might not have taken off in the way many hoped it would , but it still has the potential to be a powerful tool for the classroom.

A Guide for Using NYT VR With Students

Getting started with v.r. in the classroom, lesson 1: a mission to pluto, lesson 2: meet three children displaced by war and persecution, lesson 3: four antarctic expeditions, lesson 4: time travel through olympic history, lesson 5: decode the secret language of dolphins and whales, lesson 6: memorials and justice, lesson 7: the world’s biggest physics experiment, lesson 8: journey to the hottest place on earth, why virtual reality.

Virtual reality is engaging, yes — its novelty can be an excellent hook for learning — but it can also be so much more than that. With The Times’s 360 videos, students are no longer mere spectators, reading about an event or watching it unfold, but participants in it. Virtual reality can create a visceral experience, evoke memories, and foster empathy and emotional connection in a way that is rare in other mediums.

It can also make abstract concepts concrete — taking students inside a giant microscope that smashes together subatomic particles, transporting them to iconic moments in history, or introducing them to people affected by the global refugee crisis.

And V.R. can take students to places they might otherwise never get the chance to go, whether that’s the Mississippi Delta, Antarctica or Pluto.

From a practical standpoint, what’s also useful about NYT VR is that the films are typically no longer than 10 minutes, so they are easy to fit into a normal class period without overwhelming students.

In this guide, we offer you an array of examples to leverage immersive technology in your classroom using New York Times content and give you the tools to create V.R. lessons of your own.

How to Use This Guide

This guide comes in two parts: (1) a framework for teaching with virtual reality and (2) a set of eight lesson plans, each based on an NYT VR video. It’s meant to be flexible based on your curricular goals and the needs of your students. Here are a few suggestions for using it in your classroom.

Teach Our Lesson Plans. We’ve included eight lesson plans suitable for STEM and humanities classes that can be taught in one to two class periods. Each one is based on an NYT VR video, or series of videos, and includes activities for before, during and after the V.R. experience.

Practice Skills. Virtual reality is ripe for practicing a number of academic skills related to STEM and the humanities. You can use the lessons in this guide or the videos on their own to teach students skills like:

Making predictions and observations and drawing conclusions.

Asking media literacy questions .

Having discussions and making claims grounded in text evidence.

Practicing descriptive writing and communicating complex concepts.

Using multiple literacies like reading, viewing and listening.

Building empathy and taking the perspectives of others.

Build Your Own Curriculum. Are you teaching about animal intelligence in biology? Reading a novel about refugees in language arts? Learning about the civil rights movement in social studies? You can use any of the lesson plans in this guide to supplement a unit you’re already teaching. Here are a few ideas:

Use a video as an engaging hook at the beginning of a unit.

Take a “virtual field trip” to build background knowledge on a culture, place, people, historical event or scientific concept you are studying.

Make what you’re learning relevant to the real world by inviting students to connect what they’re studying in class to a VR video.

You can also draw on the themes and learning strategies in this guide to create your own lesson plans or units around an NYT VR film of your choice. Find many more 360 videos to use in your classroom in the 360 Video stream or the New York Times YouTube channel .

Learning Strategies for V.R.

We suggest a few teaching ideas to get the most out of virtual reality with your students.

Roles and Goals. Virtual reality is experiential; it asks viewers not just to watch the film, but also to participate in it. By giving students roles to play (astronauts, anthropologists, museum curators, deep-sea divers) and having focused objectives (collecting data, sharing insights, making recommendations), teachers provide students with a mission to decode their experiences.

Partners. Pairing students creates a community of trust, develops empathy and deepens experience sharing. It’s also useful if you have a limited number of viewing devices. Ensure that each partner has a role in the activity. For example, one student might view the video and share their observations verbally while another student records them.

Exploration and Inquiry. This medium is all about exploration, inquiry and play, so while students will have a learning objective, they should also have plenty of time to follow their curiosities and investigate the new worlds they find themselves in. We suggest students watch the video at least twice: once to explore and again to make specific observations related to their roles and goals.

Journaling. After students view the V.R. video, they should have an opportunity to record their observations, synthesize their ideas and reflect on their overall experience. Each of our lessons includes a journaling opportunity, such as the “If I Were There” and “Notice and Wonder” protocols. Then, students can discuss what they wrote.

Tips for Getting Started With V.R. in the Classroom

From safety precautions to technology requirements, here’s what you’ll need to teach with NYT VR.

A Tool, Not a Curriculum. Virtual reality is not a technology that should replace other teaching resources; instead, it should serve as a complementary tool that can enhance learning across disciplines. As with any new technology being introduced into the classroom, success depends on expectations, an effective strategy and the practical details of how it is being used.

Safety! Safety! Safety! We always recommend sitting when participating in V.R. experiences. Partners create an additional safety measure because the partner who is observing can ensure that his or her partner is safely experiencing the VR content.

Before starting, go over a list of dos and don’ts. Some of our personal favorites include:

No standing up.

If you are starting to feel dizzy or getting a headache, take the headset off.

Do not flail hands or legs around to avoid causing potential accidents.

Virtual reality can sometimes be an intensely emotional experience. Remind students that if they are feeling overwhelmed, it’s OK to stop.

Technology. To get started, you’ll also need some basic technology. Here are some general requirements:

Internet : V.R. experiences can be downloaded or streamed. We recommend downloading the experience to the device so that streaming issues are avoided.

Mobile Device : Smartphones are essential to powering these experiences.

Headset : Choose a headset that makes the most sense for the mobile devices that you are using. There are mobile device-agnostic headsets that could work with a variety of phones. Prices start under $10 for a simple cardboard viewer and go up from there. Most headsets also come with compatibility specs, so that you can be better informed on how to pair accurately.

Without Headset : 360 videos can also be viewed without a headset, but the experience isn’t as immersive. When viewing 360 videos in this format, you can drag the screen while the video is playing to view the surrounding environment in 360 degrees.

Headphones : Headphones allow the user to be more immersed and reduce the disruption to the experience that could arise from using speakers.

Finding Experiences : The NYT VR app no longer exists, but you can view NYT VR experiences via your mobile device on The New York Times, or via the YouTube VR or Within apps on the Oculus. You can also find several Times 360 videos on TechRow , a subscription-based V.R. and video delivery system for the classroom.

The NYT VR Video: “Seeking Pluto’s Frigid Heart” (View on The New York Times or YouTube VR , 8 min.)

On July 14, 2016, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft zipped past Pluto and its moons, scanning the dwarf planet in unprecedented detail. Before this moment, the best images of Pluto were only a few fuzzy pixels wide.

In this virtual reality video, students will travel on New Horizons, gliding through space at a million miles a day. They will fly over Pluto’s rugged surface and smooth places, stand on icy mountains, and watch the moon Charon rise on the horizon and touch down on a frost-rimmed crater billions of years old.

Roles and Goals Students have been selected to form a student space force to board the New Horizons spacecraft traveling to Pluto. As members of this elite team, their goal is to document their experience and share their insights on the dwarf planet with their peers.

Before Your Mission to Pluto Have students write down at least five facts they know about Pluto. For example:

• What is Pluto? • How big is Pluto? • Where is it located in the solar system? • What are some of its defining features? • How many moons are in Pluto’s orbit? • Can life exist on Pluto?

Compile students’ facts into a class list. They might check their facts, or find out more information, here .

Then, invite them to make a prediction based on what they already know: What do they think it would be like to visit Pluto?

During Your Mission Now, students will experience the NYT VR video “Seeking Pluto’s Frigid Heart.” As they watch, they should pay attention to Pluto’s unique characteristics. After viewing, they should record what they observe about Pluto:

• Location in the solar system • Surface features • Temperature • Gravity • Moons • Atmosphere

After Your Mission Students should report back to the space command center to share the insights they gained on their mission. Invite them to reflect on the following questions in writing or discussion:

What was it like to “visit” Pluto in the V.R. film? How close were your predictions to what you experienced? Based on what saw, what do you think it would be like to actually go there?

What are some of the defining characteristics of Pluto? How do those compare to what you know about Earth?

What is one new thing we learned from the New Horizons mission to Pluto? What questions do you still have about the dwarf planet?

What do these insights reveal about the universe we live in?

To share what the New Horizons mission found when it flew past Pluto, The New York Times created this interactive based on images and information from NASA. Invite your students to demonstrate what they learned about Pluto by creating an original drawing or series of drawings and annotating them with key information about the dwarf planet.

Further Reading and Viewing NASA’s New Horizons Spacecraft Sends Signal From Pluto to Earth Images of Pluto From NASA’s New Horizons Spacecraft

The NYT VR Video: “The Displaced” (View on The New York Times or YouTube VR , 11 min.)

More than 70 million people are currently displaced from their homes by war and persecution. Half are children. In this V.R. documentary, viewers travel to Ukraine, Syria and Sudan to learn the stories of three of those children.

Roles and Goals Students have been invited to form a student council to explore the impact of civil war on children, refugees and internally displaced persons in Ukraine, Syria and Sudan. As members of this council, their goal is to share insights from their experience with their peers and identify ways they can support displaced people in their community and around the world.

Before Your Trip to Ukraine, Syria and Sudan What do your students know about the global refugee crisis? Before they take off on their trip, have them create a K/W/L chart , either individually or as a class, to record what they know and what they want to know about the crisis.

Then, have students to look up the definitions of “ refugee ” and “ displaced person .” They can add these definitions to their chart.

Finally, show students this three-minute clip (Facing History and Ourselves) of Samantha Power, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, giving an overview of the current refugee crisis. Invite them to discuss what they learned and the questions they have, and then add those to their K/W/L chart.

During Your Trip Now students will embark on their virtual field trip to Ukraine, Syria and Sudan by watching “The Displaced.” As they watch, they should pay attention to the moments of “connection” and “disconnection” they have with the three children profiled in the film. In what ways are their personalities, families, homes, hopes and dreams, and life experiences similar? In what ways are they different?

After students have finished watching, they can journal or make a list in a T-chart about the “connections” and “disconnections” they have with the children.

Lastly, they can add anything new they learned about the refugee crisis to their K/W/L charts.

After Your Trip Invite students back together to discuss their insights from the visit, either in writing or together as a class:

Which moments in the video were particularly surprising, moving or affecting to you?

What are some of the causes of displacement around the world? How does displacement affect the lives of children particularly?

How was virtually visiting Oleg, Hana and Chuol different than learning facts about the refugee crisis? What did it feel like to “be” there?

What are some things you found you had in common with these children? In what ways are your lives different? What do you think it would be like to be forced from your home?

If you could talk to these children, what questions would you ask them? What else would you want to know about their lives?

As members of this special student council, students should come up with a proposal for how they can support refugees or people who have been displaced.

They might start by watching Ms. Power talk about small steps individuals can take to help refugees in this one-minute video (Facing History and Ourselves).

Then, they can brainstorm actions they can take on a school level, a local level, a national level and an international level. For example, if there are refugees at their school or in their community, what could they do to support them? If students themselves are refugees, they might share their experiences and what support they would want most from others.

Here are some more resources to get them started:

How You Can Help Refugees in the United States (The New York Times)

4 Ways You Can Support Refugees (Voices of Youth)

Taking Action to Assist Syrian Refugees (I Am Syria)

Students might choose one of the actions they brainstormed and develop it into a plan for supporting refugees in their school, community or country.

Further Reading The Displaced: Introduction The Displaced: Oleg The Displaced: Chuol The Displaced: Hana

The NYT VR Videos: “The Antarctica Series” (View on The New York Times or YouTube VR, links below)

In this collection of four V.R. videos, viewers explore life on, above and below the Antarctic ice. They’ll dive under eight feet of ice with expert divers, fly in a helicopter through the McMurdo Dry Valleys, travel in a military plane over the Ross Ice Shelf, and join the people at McMurdo Station who make life possible on the least habitable continent.

Roles and Goals Your school has decided to establish a student expeditionary force to Antarctica to explore life around the continent. Students’ goal is to document their experience and share it with their peers so they can better understand the Antarctic environment and landscape as a whole.

Students can choose from among these four expeditions:

In “ Under a Cracked Sky ” (10 min.), dive under eight feet of sea ice to swim with seals, explore ice caves and float above a dark seabed crawling with life.

In “ Three Six Juliet ” (11 min.), fly in a helicopter through the McMurdo Dry Valleys, one of the most extreme environments on Earth.

In “ McMurdo Station ” (9 min.), join the mechanics, cooks, drivers, firefighters, scientists and others who run a research station on the least habitable continent, thousands of miles from civilization.

In “ A Shifting Continent ” (15 min.), fly with scientists in a military cargo plane as they probe the structure of the Ross Ice Shelf, a Texas-size chunk of floating ice.

Before Your Antarctic Expedition Have students choose the expedition they want to go on, or assign them to one, making sure each excursion has an even number of people.

Invite students to convene with the other students who are going on their expedition. In their groups, have them discuss what they already know about Antarctica. Then, based on their prior knowledge and the description of their V.R. experience, have them make a list of essentials they would likely need to take with them.

Finally, challenge them to make some predictions: What do they think they will find as they explore life on, above and below the Antarctic ice?

During Your Expedition Now students will embark on their chosen Antarctic expedition from “The Antarctica Series.” As they watch, they should act like researchers, collecting data on their experience to report back to their classmates. They will become the “experts” on this particular piece of the continent, so it’s important they take detailed notes about their observations.

They can use the “If I Were There” journaling protocol to record what they find:

• If I were there, I would touch … • If I were there, I would see … • If I were there, I would hear … • If I were there, I would smell … • If I were there, I would taste … • If I were there, I would feel …

After Your Expedition Have students rejoin their small groups and synthesize the data they gathered from their expeditions before sharing it with their peers. They can discuss the following questions:

What was interesting or surprising about your journey?

What were some of the unique characteristics of the place you visited?

What are the conditions like for researchers there?

What have researchers learned from studying this specific piece of the continent? In what ways might this research contribute to our understanding of the world, the universe or ourselves?

Next, have at least one person from each group meet together in “teaching groups.” In these groups, each expert should have a chance to share what they learned on their respective expedition while the others take notes.

After everyone has had a chance to share, invite each group to discuss the following questions:

Could you see yourself doing any of the research jobs you observed in the V.R. videos? If so, which ones and why? If not, why not?

How do you think the research conducted by scientists in Antarctica might affect the world? In what ways might it affect your lives, if at all?

Do you think it is worthwhile for countries to spend time, money and resources studying Antarctica? Why or why not?

Further Reading Antarctic Dispatches

The NYT VR Video: “The Modern Games” (View on YouTube VR , 9 min.)

In this virtual reality experience, created ahead of the 2016 Rio Games, The New York Times transports you to iconic Olympic moments throughout history. Viewers travel back in time to stand beside history-making track and field star Babe Didrikson, record-setting long jumper Bob Beamon, and the fastest man in the world, Usain Bolt.

Roles and Goals The New York Times has invited your students to create a virtual reality documentary exploring Olympic history. As members of this special team, their goal is to examine how The Mill , the visual effects and content creation studio responsible for “The Modern Games” documentary, transformed archival imagery into historical settings viewers can visit. Then, students will research and design a V.R. experience of another iconic Olympic moment to add to the video.

Before Your Exploration of Olympic History Invite students to share their memories of Olympic Games they’ve been to, watched on television, or read or heard about.

Challenge them to be as specific as possible when describing their experiences: What do they remember most about this moment? Where were they and who were they with? What sights, sounds, tastes and smells come to mind when they relive this memory? What were they feeling? What thoughts were running through their heads? What was the social, political and cultural context during the year those games took place?

Then, have them explore the birth of what are known as the “modern Games” in Athens in 1896, either via this New York Times retrospect or these artifacts from Olympic.org .

How were the modern Games different from the Greek athletic competitions from which the Olympics originated? What were some of the highlights of these first Games? How do these Games compare to the ones your students have experienced?

During Your Exploration Now, students will travel back in time to some of the most iconic Olympic events in “The Modern Games.” As they watch, they should choose one event to focus on and use the “If I Were There” protocol to record their observations:

After Your Exploration Invite students to come back together to discuss their experience:

What was it like to experience iconic Olympic moments through V.R.? What can we learn from this medium that we may not get from written texts, photos and videos?

What role do the Olympics play in global history? What do they say about the cultural and political landscapes of the era in which they take place?

Can the Games be an opportunity to break through social barriers to inclusion? Give one example from the video.

Now, it is students’ turn. Assign small groups to choose one of the Olympic Games throughout history and design a V.R. experience for an important event, moment or person at those Games. They can learn more about how The Mill constructed the scenes in “The Modern Games” in this behind the scenes video .

As they put together their experience, they should consider the following questions:

What event, moment or person will be at the center of your experience?

What photo would you use as the setting for your scene?

Who would you interview and why?

What other sound effects would you use?

Where would you position users in the scene? What effect will this location have on their experience?

What experience would you want users to have as they navigate the video? What other visual or experiential aspects might you include? Why?

Students can present their designs via a mood board or story board created on Canva. Or, if they have the resources, they can produce their own V.R. videos .

The NYT VR Video: “The Click Effect” (View on Within , 7 min.)

Until recently, most research on sperm whales’ communication had been conducted from a boat. Why? For one, few scientists were brave enough to swim with the world’s largest predator. And the animals tend to be scared off by the burbling of scuba gear or submarines and robots.

The best option for studying these mammals is free diving: diving dozens, sometimes hundreds, of feet on a single breath of air.

In this V.R. video, viewers join a journalist and a marine scientist on a free dive as they capture the secret “click” communication of dolphins and sperm whales.

Roles and Goals Students have been invited to form an elite diving team to investigate the secret language of dolphins and whales. As a member of this elite team, their goal is to document their experience and test their hypothesis on whether whales and dolphins are “intelligent.”

Before Your Dive First, have students research the animals they will be studying during their free dive: dolphins and sperm whales . They should compile a list of basic facts about the two species.

Then, if they haven’t already brought it up, explain that both animals use echolocation, a form of sonar that allows animals to “see,” and perhaps communicate with each other, under water.

They can test this out with an echolocation activity from Education.com. You’ll need at least two students to participate. One student will stand in the center of the room, blindfolded. To test his or her ability to locate sound, the other student will move around the room, clapping twice. Each time, the blindfolded student should point to where he or she thinks the sound is coming from. (If students are not in the classroom, they can watch this short video instead.)

Ask students: What does this experiment tell you about echolocation? Why might this skill be useful to whales and dolphins? Whether echolocation is a “language” is a topic scientists have debated for decades. Do you think it can be considered a form of communication? Why or why not?

Then, invite students to develop a hypothesis based on what they’ve learned so far: Are dolphins and whales “intelligent” in the way that humans are? That is, can they communicate, learn, understand and socialize? What more information would you need to know to answer this question? How might you go about collecting data to prove or disprove your hypothesis?

During Your Dive Now students will free dive with whales and dolphins in the V.R. video “The Click Effect.” As they watch, they should make observations of the animals’ behavior.

When they are finished, they might create a T-chart, on one side citing evidence from the video that supports the claim that dolphins and sperm whales are intelligent, and on the other, evidence that might contradict that claim.

After Your Dive Invite students to come back together to share the insights from their dive. They can reflect on the following questions in writing or discussion:

What was it like to virtually free dive and swim with dolphins and whales? How was it different from reading about them in the warm up?

What is one important discovery about dolphins and whales’ use of echolocation that scientists made in their research?

Fabrice Schnöller, a marine researcher, says that other animals can “see the world in a different way.” How did you see the world in a different way through this experience?

James Nestor, a journalist, claims that “Tens of millions of dollars are spent every year looking for signs of intelligent life in the universe. But there’s already intelligent life in the universe, and it’s right here,” in our oceans. Do you agree? Why or why not?

Have students write a report to send back to the lab summarizing their findings. After this expedition, do they believe that dolphins and whales are intelligent in the ways we conceive of intelligence? If they do not feel like they can answer this question yet, they can make a list of questions they would need to know the answers to before reaching a determination. How might they go about researching and collecting data for these questions?

Further Reading Opinion | A Conversation With Whales

Remembering Emmett Till

In this virtual reality documentary, we explore how the mississippi towns where emmett till’s murder took place more than six decades ago are trying to memorialize him..

On hot August night more than 63 years ago, Emmett Till was lynched here in the Mississippi Delta. His case was so horrific that he became an enduring symbol for racial hostility and injustice. In 1955, Emmett, a 14-year-old black boy from Chicago, was kidnapped, brutally beaten and lynched in Mississippi after he was accused of whistling at a white woman at a grocery store. His body was thrown into a river and found days later. “The body was so badly damaged that we couldn’t hardly just tell who he was, but he happened to have on a ring with his initials.” The men charged in Emmett’s killing, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, were acquitted by an all-white, all-male jury, and though they later confessed, no one served any time. His mother, Mamie Till Mobley, was thrust into the media spotlight and spoke out on national television. “Well, the whole trial was just a farce, and — but the verdict was the one that I had expected to be given.” She held an open-casket funeral, and in allowing his tortured body to be photographed, brought public attention to the case, profoundly shaping the civil rights movement. “For him to have died a hero would mean more to me than for him just to have died. And I know that his life can’t be returned, but I hope that his death will certainly start a movement.” Here in Mississippi, the name “Emmett Till” has been carried by black families generation to generation, often as a cautionary tale. But only in the last decade or so have officials formally recognized what happened to the teenager in the summer of 1955. I came to Mississippi to learn how these communities are grappling with the legacy of Emmett Till. There are still physical reminders of his death. Many of these structures are easy to miss or not fully accessible. They are off remote dirt roads, along a deserted bridge and even on an old plantation. But now there’s an effort to memorialize his story with historical markers. Here in Sumner, the Emmett Till Interpretive Center puts up some of these markers. Jessie Jaynes-Diming gives tours of these sites, including one with a sign that has been marred by vandalism. “This sign here is the replacement sign for the one that disappeared. And as you can see, it has many different bullet holes in it. We’re due to replace it with a bulletproof one. We do have another one that is up at this particular time, but it’s also shot up. I would not replace it again. I want the world to see just as Mamie did. I want the world to see how some people still feel about Emmett’s death.” Another important site in the story has escaped vandalism, but has withered under neglect. This roofless, crumbling building was once Bryant’s Grocery and Meat Market, where Emmett encountered Carolyn Bryant Donham, the shopkeeper, in 1955. You could drive right past it and not see it, save for the marker to its side. It’s currently owned by the Tribble family, whose patriarch was a juror in the murder trial. Over the years, the Till center and others have tried to buy the building and have it donated to be restored as a memorial, but so far, the negotiations have been unsuccessful. Emmett was kidnapped from his uncle’s house and brought to this barn, where he was brutally beaten and tortured. The barn’s current owner, Dr. Jeff Andrews, has maintained the structure, upgrading the exterior. He allows people to visit, but it’s unmarked. The Tallahatchie County Courthouse in front of you was the site of the murder trial. Mississippi State Senator David Jordan is one of the last living people to have witnessed the trial in 1955. He was a college freshman then, and he came with his classmates. “So when we walked inside of the courtroom, the four of us were sitting side by side. And as we looked forward — and we could look at at the courtroom like it is now, it was exactly like it was in 1955. When Mrs. Till and Congressman Charles Gage walked in, I believe they walked to their right, and they they took a seat up where the African-American reporters were.” “For 50 years, our community wanted to forget what took place here. And it wasn’t until the community finally came together across racial lines and offered the first apology that we began work on restoring our courthouse back to the way [it was in] 1955, and opening up the Emmett Till Interpretive Center across the street.” Outside the courthouse, there’s now a sign to mark the murder trial on one side, on the other side there’s a Confederate monument. It was put up in 1913, during the Jim Crow era. I came back to this bullet-riddled marker, where Emmett’s body was recovered from the river. Over and over again, the signs have been vandalized. Is there a larger message? A dark interpretation would be that some people don’t want to be reminded of his murder. But for those invested in preserving Emmett’s legacy, their hope is that such memorials help visitors walk away with an honest account of what happened to this 14-year-old boy all those years ago. I was struck by the contrast of the decay and emptiness of Bryant’s Grocery store, and its outsized role in Emmett Till’s fate — and in turn, American civil rights history. In so many ways, this embodies the push and pull of public memory — and the question of how America chooses to forget or face its history.

The NYT VR Video: “Remembering Emmett Till” (View on The New York Times , 8 min.)

In “ Remembering Emmett Till: The Legacy of a Lynching ,” Veda Shastri, Audra D.S. Burch, Tim Chaffee and Nicole Fineman write:

In August 1955, 14-year-old Emmett Till of Chicago was accused of whistling at a white woman at a grocery store in Mississippi. He was later kidnapped, tortured, lynched and dumped in a river. Today, more than six decades later, the local communities in towns closely connected to Emmett’s story are grappling with the legacy of the lynching.

In this 360-degree documentary, students will travel with Audra D.S. Burch, a New York Times correspondent, to the Mississippi town where Emmett was killed. They will visit several key locations to explore the cultural reckoning happening now and examine the role that physical structures related to the Emmett Till case play in the efforts to memorialize him.

Roles and Goals Students have been invited to form a student team of curators to help memorialize Emmett for the Emmett Till Interpretive Center. Their goal is to visit the places that make up the narrative of what happened to Emmett and make suggestions for how the center can commemorate this painful history.

Before Your Visit to the Mississippi Delta Invite students to do a quick-write responding to the following question:

How should a community memorialize a painful history — such as a murder, a riot, a lynching or a massacre inspired by racism?

Should it create informational markers, preserve old structures and build statues? Should it try to teach future generations what happened? Or, should it do nothing in an attempt to move on to a better future?

After students have finished writing, have them discuss their response with a partner.

During Your Visit Now, students will travel to the place where Emmett’s murder took place, in the virtual reality documentary “Remembering Emmett Till.” As they watch, they should pay attention to the various markers of Emmett’s story shared in the film, as well as their own emotional reactions.

Have students journal about what they saw and heard, and how it made them feel. They might use the following prompts:

• One location that stood out to me was … because … • One quote that resonated with me was … because … • One emotion I had while watching was … because … • One question I have is …

After Your Visit Have students come back together to discuss what they learned. They can reflect on the following questions in writing or discussion:

What happened to Emmet Till over 60 years ago? How are the two communities where these events happened still grappling with the legacy?

Should the Emmett Till Interpretive Center stop trying to replace the bullet-riddled historical markers, as a way to show the world that some people still want to erase this painful history? Or should they rededicate a new marker, to ensure that vandalism doesn’t prevent people from learning about these events? (You can read this 2019 article to get an update on this story.)

Do historical signs and markers matter? Do you ever read them? Are they important to maintain?

What do you think the Emmett Till Interpretive Center should do next to help preserve the legacy of what happened in these towns? After watching the film, what would you advise?

Have students visit the Emmett Till Interpretive Center’s website to learn more about the center’s work. Then they can use their new knowledge to provide additional insights into answering the key question: How should these two communities memorialize this painful history?

Invite them to write up a proposal or sketch a design of one way these communities could commemorate Emmett’s legacy.

Further Reading Emmett Till’s Murder, and How America Remembers Its Darkest Moments Emmett Till Memorial Has a New Sign. This Time, It’s Bulletproof.

The NYT VR Video: “Inside CERN’s Large Hadron Collider” (View on The New York Times , 6 min.)

In this virtual reality experience, viewers travel beneath the fields of Switzerland and France to tour the largest microscope ever built. They’ll explore the ins and outs of the machine, hear about its future, and study the remnants of the Higgs boson, a long-sought particle that helps explain why there is mass, diversity and life in the cosmos.

Roles and Goals Students have been invited to form a committee to study the Large Hadron Collider, developed by physicists at CERN, the European Center for Nuclear Research, before it closes for upgrades. Their goal is to learn how the microscope works and share their findings with their peers.

Before Your Tour of the Large Hadron Collider Have students begin by discussing these questions: Why are microscopes important? What do we use them for? What are some things we’ve learned about our world that we would not know without them?

Then, invite them to read about how CERN’s Large Hadron Collider works:

The collider is a kind of microscope that works by flinging subatomic particles around a 17-mile electromagnetic racetrack beneath the French-Swiss countryside, smashing them together 600 million times a second and sifting through the debris for new particles and forces of nature. The instrument is also a time machine, providing a glimpse of the physics that prevailed in the early moments of the universe and laid the foundation for the cosmos as we see it today.

What might scientists learn about the universe from this machine? In what ways might this knowledge be useful to us?

Finally, have them brainstorm questions they would want to ask the physicists of CERN about the collider.

During Your Tour Now, students will travel beneath the French-Swiss countryside to tour the microscope in the V.R. video “Inside CERN’s Large Hadron Collider.” As they watch, they should pay attention to the different parts of the machine and how they work.

After the video, students should jot down what they learned about the following components of the collider and the role each plays:

• The “racetrack” • The detectors • Compact Muon Solenoid • Atlas • The computer banks

After Your Tour Gather the students back together to share their insights with each other about CERN’s Large Hadron Collider. Students can discuss what they learned using the following prompts:

What was your experience like inside the collider? What are some things you discovered on your tour?

Why was the discovery of the Higgs boson so significant? How did the collider aid in that discovery?

How do you think the research conducted by physicists using the Large Hadron Collider might affect the world? How might it affect you personally?

Now, have students create a model to illustrate how a subatomic particle would travel through the Large Hadron Collider.

The model can take any form students like, but they should remember that the goal is to help their peers understand how this microscope works. They might create a drawing or a digital illustration. If they have the resources, they can build a virtual model using 3-D software or a physical one using clay or some other material. They could create a comic or a short video that follows an animated proton on its journey through the collider. All models should include labels of the key elements they portray.

They can find more information in the article “ It’s Intermission Time for the Large Hadron Collider .”

Finally, invite students to reflect: What did they learn from creating their model? What are its limitations? In other words, what is the model not able to show? What questions did this assignment raise for them?

The NYT VR Video: “The Land of Salt and Fire” (View on The New York Times or YouTube VR , 6 min.)

Tectonic shifts are disrupting the traditional way of life for people in the Afar region in Ethiopia. In this V.R. video, students will be transported to Dallol, Ethiopia, the hottest place on Earth, where they will travel with camel caravans across salt flats and active geothermal zones, to find out how the Afar people are adapting.

Roles and Goals Students have been invited to form an anthropological expedition to document life in Dallol. As members of this team, their goal is to document their experiences and share insights with their peers to better understand Dallol’s unique geography and people.

Before Your Excursion to Dallol Before visiting the people and places they are studying, anthropologists always conduct background research. Have students do this by first finding Dallol on a map. Next, invite them to spend a few minutes doing a Google image search of “ Dallol ” and “ salt trade ,” an important economic activity in the region.

Then, discuss what they notice and wonder about what they see. Ask them:

• How would you describe the landscape of Dallol? What is unique about it? • Where does the salt trade predominantly take place? • How is salt mined? What tools are used? • What might you expect to see on a visit to Dallol?

During Your Excursion Now students will embark on their expedition by watching the NYT VR video “The Land of Salt and Fire.” As they watch, remind them that anthropology is the study of human societies and cultures, so they should pay special attention to how the people of Dallol have developed their society and what role the environment has played in it.

After they’ve finished, they can use the “If I Were There” protocol to record their observations:

After Your Excursion Invite students to reconvene and discuss the discoveries they made. They can reflect on the following questions in writing or discussion:

What was interesting or surprising about their trip to Dallol? What did it feel like to “be there”?

What role has the salt trade played in the lives of the Afar people over generations?

What are the forces that are changing the Afar people’s traditional way of life? How are they adapting?

How can an environment influence a people’s way of life? How does the environment where you live influence how people live and work in your community?

The goal of anthropologists is to publish their findings so they can share what they’ve learned with the public. Students can create a one-pager to share their insights with their peers. They can summarize their findings with an illustration, a quote and a question they might want to ask the Afar people. Post the one-pagers around the classroom and have students do a gallery walk, or invite them to present their work in small groups.

Further Reading Voyages: The Danakil Depression, Ethiopia

Travis Feldler is the founder of TechRow , a social enterprise that explores how to leverage immersive technology inside schools to improve learning outcomes.

Natalie Proulx joined The Learning Network as a staff editor in 2017 after working as an English language arts teacher and curriculum writer. More about Natalie Proulx

National Geographic Education Blog

Bring the spirit of exploration to your classroom.

Virtual Tours Are Taking Off. Here’s How to Integrate Them Into Your Teaching

Educator James Fester wrote this post.

It is said that every place tells one story better than any other place.

As a volunteer educator at Angel Island State Park in San Francisco, I came to appreciate this more deeply. I was lucky to have such an excellent teaching environment. The park, which covers an island in the middle of San Francisco Bay, tells a multilayered story. It has been the site of Indigenous settlements, Civil War fortifications, World War II embarkation facilities, and the U.S.’s main West Coast immigration station from 1910 to 1940. The visitors who participated in my program were surrounded by an environment full of resources that I could leverage to illustrate my points and that they could explore to fulfill their own curiosity. I’d always wished I could duplicate in my classroom the kind of learning that took place in the park.

Fortunately, California State Parks developed the PORTS Home Learning Programs , which provide distance learning to students across the state. The creation of a virtual tour took this concept a step further, allowing students to explore parts of Angel Island on their own.

These resources weren’t unique to Angel Island, with many other parks and museums creating their own virtual experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic for learners of all sorts to use. Educational sites and organizations that previously catered to visiting student groups were forced to close down, but like classroom educators, they didn’t give up. Rather, they began rapidly adapting to distance learning, and the result was an explosion in virtual tours.

As a park volunteer, I saw this occur firsthand. The same pivoting that occurred in thousands of classrooms also happened at parks, zoos, museums, and aquariums across the United States, and the result was a rapid increase in interactive and virtual experiences that engaged students and promoted deeper thinking.

These kinds of resources aren’t backed up just by anecdotal evidence. Multiple studies have shown that the inclusion of virtual tours and trips in curriculum increases reading comprehension , helps promote global awareness among isolated or rural populations , and can be used to effectively engage and reduce dropout rates for at-risk populations of students .

However, even the fanciest website, with all sorts of interactive buttons, isn’t automatically a valuable learning experience. It is just a resource unless you pair it with a method. The tour needs to be supported by a framework that encourages the kinds of exploratory activities that give learners the opportunity to find and construct their own answers.

Creating activities that both incorporate virtual exploration and connect to the National Geographic Learning Framework can be done in a lot of different ways. Here are a few:

• Similar to exploring a physical environment, exploring a virtual environment requires observation. For example, students learning about differences between how people live today and how people lived long ago might take this 3D tour of Hampton National Historic Site. They could record their observations in a Venn diagram or share them during an all-class discussion.
• Students can be given a question or inquiry challenge, then can collaborate in pairs or small groups, discussing what they are learning as they navigate through an experience. For example, students can use this interactive tour of Carlsbad Caverns to learn about the site’s complex cave ecosystems, then get into small groups to construct annotated diagrams of ecosystem features based on what they learned.
• Virtual tours help promote awareness of distant cultural resources and natural wonders. Without virtual tours, archeological marvels like Mesa Verde National Park were inaccessible to millions and millions of people. Now, through platforms like YouVisit , global audiences can experience this place and hopefully turn that awareness into empathy for its protection and preservation.
• When virtual exploration is structured along inquiry-based lines, student curiosity becomes the driver, allowing for choice and interest to guide learning. Using a broad, open-ended question like “How do monuments communicate meaning?” and allowing students choice as they explore memorials and monuments helps them learn how sculpture and symbolism convey meaning. 3D models of locations like the Lincoln Memorial and Mount Rushmore help students stay engaged and investigate more deeply.

These great resources will get you started teaching with virtual tours:

• Google Arts & Culture has an extensive collection of resources you can use to create immersive virtual experiences for students interested in exploring the natural and cultural wonders preserved by the National Park Service!
• CyArk is a fantastic site that includes amazing virtual tours that are navigable and narrated, as well as terrific 3D models that are manipulable. They also curate great collections, like this collection focusing on social justice and equal rights .
• The National Park Service provides a multitude of options for exploring virtually. Visit their website for a selection of virtual tours and multimedia resources, or check out the Virtual Passport Cancellation activities offered by a nonprofit partner of the park service.
• Finally, my COVID-19 Remote Learning Emergency Fund project, funded by the National Geographic Society, allowed me to create resources that can be used by any teacher to develop their own Google-powered virtual tours and explorations! I wanted to create exemplary virtual tours that could be used either on their own or by teachers interested in making their own virtual tours. Check out my webpage to learn more about how to build your own virtual interpretive tours!

For more on the National Geographic Learning Framework, read the overview on nationalgeographic.org and enroll in our free, 90-minute mini-course “ Developing a National Geographic Explorer Mindset with Your Learners ,” open now.

James Fester is a consultant and author passionate about project-based learning (PBL) and experiential learning. His educational experience includes classroom teaching, instructional coaching, technology integration, and, most recently, serving as a member of the PBLWorks National Faculty. In addition to his consulting work, James is a National Park Service volunteer who collaborates on educational programs for parks across the country. His writing has been featured by National Geographic, TED-Ed, KQED, and in a recent book on PBL and environmental science published by ISTE . He currently resides in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota. Learn more about his work or how to work with him on his website !

This post references a project made possible in part by an award from the National Geographic Society’s COVID-19 Remote Learning Emergency Fund for Educators .

In the featured image, a caver lights up a gypsum chandelier in Carlsbad Caverns National Park, one of several parks educators and students can experience in a virtual tour hosted by Google Arts & Culture. (Dr. Jean K. Krejca, Zara Environmental LLC – For Public Use)

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The 22 Ultimate Virtual Field Trips & Tours for Students

Written by Maria Kampen

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What is a virtual tour and how does it work?

Technology powering virtual field trips for students, 22 best virtual field trips for students, how to incorporate virtual tours into learning activities.

Imagine taking your entire class to see one of the seven wonders of the world up close and personal — and then being back at school before the final bell rings. 

The rise of online learning activities during the pandemic accelerated the availability of virtual field trips , tours and experiences for students of all ages. Now there are many interactive virtual tours available to places that would be impossible to reach on a class trip — the pyramids in Egypt, the Louvre museum in Paris or even an African safari.

We put together a list of 22 unforgettable virtual field trips and experiences that will help your students see amazing sights, connect their learning to real-world experiences and expand their horizons.

Virtual tours allow students to explore noteworthy places around the world, from the comfort of their home or the classroom. 

Virtual tours give students the opportunity to stop, explore and guide learning at their own pace. While they’re exploring, they can get up close to nature or artifacts that might not otherwise be easily accessible. 

Virtual tours can be many different things, including:

• A live webcam of a zoo or animal habitat
• A 360 degree view of a location you can manipulate
• Pictures enriched with helpful information and diagrams

Even ten or fifteen years ago, video tours would have been rare or impossible. Advancements in technology and education have combined to help people learn and explore from anywhere!

• National Geographic creates TV series about nature, history and archaeology
• Food shows like Netflix’s Salt Fat Acid Heat take viewers on food journeys across the world
• Planet Earth , a television series, brings far-flung locations to your living room or classroom
• Discovery Education gives educators access to multimedia resources that supplement classroom learning
• Video conferencing technology like Zoom lets you connect with people and learning experiences around the world

We love being able to sit at home or in the classroom and learn about different foods, cultures and geography. Why not introduce that to your students?

1. Take a trip to the zoo

Whether it’s live webcams of adorable pandas or behind-the-scenes tours with zookeepers, zoos all over the world offer ways for animal antics to delight and entertain your students. 

Some of our favorites include:

• Edinburgh Zoo’s Panda Cam
• Georgia Aquarium’s Beluga Whale Livestream
• The Smithsonian National Zoo’s Naked Mole-rat Cam
• A live feed of African river wildlife in Laikipia County, Kenya
• The San Diego Zoo Live Ape Cam , or any of their other live animal feeds
• Home Safari videos from the Cincinnati Zoo, where zookeepers introduce you to the hundreds of animals that make the zoo their home.

2. Visit The Hidden Worlds of National Parks

From Yosemite to Mesa Verde, explore some of the USA’s most beloved and beautiful national parks with The Hidden World of National Parks .  

Supported by Google Arts & Culture , students can use the same technology that powers Street View to explore the national parks at their own pace. 

The program also includes guided tours from park rangers, where they share their expertise as you explore. Follow the on-screen prompts and let them guide your adventure!

3. Watch the Monterey Bay Aquarium Sea Otters

Play with the sea otters as they swim around Monterey Bay Aquarium in California! Tune in throughout the day to see them being fed, learn fun facts about otters and watch them play in the water. 

If you’d like to check out some other aquarium-related channels, Monterey Bay Aquarium also offers Open Sea or Kelp Forest live streams.

4. Swim through Palau coral reefs

Travel to the Pacific Ocean through a virtual adventure and see the Palau coral reefs . Hosted by Nature Lab and the Nature Conservancy, this tour teaches students about the importance of preserving some of the most fragile ecosystems in the world — no wetsuit required. 

Take learning to the next level with the Nature Lab’s Teacher’s Guide , which includes discussion questions and related resources to keep learners engaged. 

5. Visit the surface of Mars

It took the Perseverance rover about seven months to get to Mars. But thanks to this virtual tour , you and your students can go for a visit in just one afternoon. 

Created by Google and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, this virtual tour takes you through the history of Mars explorations and turns what might be a far-flung topic into something right at students’ fingertips. They’ll explore the surface of Mars, learn more about the rovers that have studied its surface and understand how Mars exploration fits into the history of space travel.

6. Power up with renewable energy

Powering the Planet from the Nature Conservancy is an interactive lesson that focuses on renewable energy sources. It explains to students how energy around them is necessary for life, and covers how energy can be sourced in a way that’s not harmful to the environment.

All the Nature Conservancy’s programs come with a Teacher Guide , which offers lesson plans and activities relating to the virtual tour. 

7. Walk the Great Wall of China

The Great Wall of China is over 13,000 miles long, so be sure to pack your walking shoes for this trip!

This virtual tour lets students explore key points in the Great Wall of China, plus see the history and amazing view up close.

8. Float around the International Space Station

Did you know that astronauts have continuously inhabited the International Space Station for 20 years? Now your class can join them!

With tours of the different parts of the space station, facts about the layout and assembly, and information about the different astronauts who’ve visited from around the world, students can get an out-of-this-world experience from the comfort of their home or classroom. 

Plus, there are plenty of images, videos, graphics and media resources to help you tie topics into your curriculum.

9. Scuba dive in the Great Barrier Reef

The Great Barrier Reef is a delicate ecosystem especially vulnerable to the effects of pollution and climate change. 

David Attenborough’s Great Barrier Reef is a tour created in partnership with the Natural History Museum in London that teaches everyone about the beauty and fragility of one of the world’s greatest natural wonders. 

The Great Barrier Reef is also available on Google Street View through Google Maps as one of the first underwater locations to be mapped. 

10. Learn about water and Colombia’s páramo ecosystem

Just outside of Bogotá, Columbia, is one of the most diverse ecosystems in the world. In this virtual lesson, students will learn about how the water cycle plays a vital role in biodiversity, and get an up-close look at the animals that call the area home. 

Use the accompanying Teacher Guide to help students discuss the topic and stay engaged with the lesson. And check out the rest of the Nature Lab's YouTube channel for even more virtual experiences.

11. Tour the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History

The Smithsonian Institute is the world’s largest museum — so there are plenty of things for students to explore. 

With a variety of virtual tours to choose from, the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History is full of ways to get students excited about learning. Students can watch narrated tours of different exhibits ranging from history and geography to the research stations in the museum. 

Whether students want to walk through the museum on their own or let someone else do the talking, there’s something for every lesson.

12. Get caught up in the American Revolution

History meets the present at the Museum of the American Revolution ! 

This virtual tour lets students see artifacts, meet museum staff and hear stories of real people who fought for American independence.

It also comes with a Classroom Ki t for 2nd to 8th grade that supplements learning and makes it even more meaningful. 

13. Trek up Mt. Everest

This 360 degree video from National Geographic lets students explore Mt. Everest along with a group of researchers. Together, they’ll discover what kind of effects climate change has on the mountain, and how we can work to preserve natural landscapes. 

Not up for climbing mountains? Take a virtual ride on Expedition Everest , the tallest rollercoaster in any Disney park! But beware — there’s a monster lurking in the dark.

14. Get the right angle with Explore Geometry

Powered by Nearpod, Explore Geometry ’s lesson plans connect classroom lessons with architecture in the natural world.

Students can explore the gardens of Versailles to learn about the geometry of a French garden before moving on to the next lesson and putting their skills to practical use.

15. Wander through the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City

One of the most well-known museums in the world, students can now explore The Met’s vast collections with the Met 360º Project .

Virtual tours help students get a sense of the space, art and collections inside of the museum. Whether they’re interested in the Met Cloisters or the Arms and Armor gallery, students can go at their own pace, accompanied by a soothing soundtrack. 

You can also book virtual tours with a museum guide to line up with your lesson plan. Tours are free for NYC public schools and all Title I schools, and $200 USD per class for other schools.

16. Explore history in the British Museum

Another world-class museum, students can explore the British Museum in London using Google Street View, read facts about the artifacts and connect what they see to their history lessons. 

Whether it’s the Rosetta Stone, the Elgin Marbles, Egyptian sculpture or any other historical treasure, there’s something every student will find interesting!

If you want to let someone else do the exploring, there’s also a 46-minute virtual walking tour , where you can skip to the sections that are most relevant to you and your class. 

17. Visit the White House

In Washington, D.C. the White House is the symbolic heart of America, and now students can walk the halls for themselves. 

Whether they want to take a lap around the Oval Office or wander the building, students can explore this virtual tour from the White House Historical Association . Plus, it comes with class tie-ins like vocabulary lessons and other activities to make the experience even more memorable! 

18. Arrive at Ellis Island

Ever wonder what it was like for new immigrants to see the Statue of Liberty and step foot on American soil for the first time?

Now students can experience it for themselves with this virtual tour , a collaboration between Scholastic and the National Park Service. They’ll learn the importance of immigration in the history of the United States and hear real-life stories about the people who came looking for a better life. 

After students watch the video, they can click through this interactive map with facts and stories about the people who came through Ellis Island. 

19. Explore China's forests

In this online tour, students can explore the natural habitats of pandas in the forests of China . They’ll discover how the panda’s home plays a role in understanding our world, learn about local conservation efforts and see the big-picture view of how these vast forests fit into our understanding of nature and climate change. 

Plus, this program also comes with a handy Teacher Guide for you to use in lesson planning!

20. Bundle up in the Arctic tundra

Take a virtual field trip all the way up north to the tundra! Discovery Education’s tundra programs for elementary, middle and high school students cover the natural habitat of polar bears, plus their activities and migration patterns.

This virtual tour comes with instructional activities and classroom tie-ins, so you can be sure students are getting a productive learning experience.

21. Go spelunking in the world's largest cave

Travel through Vietnam’s Son Doong, the world’s largest cave . First explored by researchers in 2009, this cave is up to 200 meters tall in some areas and even has its own jungle inside. 

It’s estimated that the total length of the cave system is over 200 kilometers, and with this National Geographic tour students can explore to their heart’s content. High definition pictures and helpful facts mean that not only is this an awe-inspiring trip for students, but it’s also educational! 

Because the cave is ecologically sensitive, only a certain number of tourists are allowed to visit each year. This virtual tour is a great way for kids and adults to experience the wonder up close!

22. Browse the Louvre

Take your students on a quick trip to Paris where you can explore the architecture and art of the Louvre without the crowds. 

Plus, the Louvre also offers Louvre Kids , as well as a Mona Lisa Beyond the Glass virtual app experience where users can learn how Leonardo da Vinci created his most well-known masterpiece.

From kindergarten to high school, virtual field trips are a great way to get students excited about learning. And if you’re homeschooling , they’re the perfect way to get real-world experience without leaving the house!

To get the most out of the experience, keep these tips in mind:

• Ask students what they’re interested in exploring 
• Look for virtual experiences that fit into your lesson plan for maximum impact
• Search for supplementary resources like teacher guides and discussion questions
• Try out the virtual tour first to make sure it’s worth it and to avoid any unpleasant technical glitches
• Use virtual field trips at the beginning of a unit to introduce students to new concepts, or at the end as a reward and wrap-up activity

Be sure to follow up with students and see what they liked the most. Then, harness that excitement for your next lesson or activity! 

Prodigy Math Game is an adaptive math platform where students can explore a world filled with adventure, excitement and rewards — all for practicing math! While they’re having a blast answering questions and completing epic quests, Prodigy’s free teacher tools help you align their learning to your classroom lessons. 

Sign up for your free teacher account today!

Open 365 days a year, Mount Vernon is located just 15 miles south of Washington DC.

From the mansion to lush gardens and grounds, intriguing museum galleries, immersive programs, and the distillery and gristmill. Spend the day with us!

Discover what made Washington "first in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen".

The Mount Vernon Ladies Association has been maintaining the Mount Vernon Estate since they acquired it from the Washington family in 1858.

Need primary and secondary sources, videos, or interactives? Explore our Education Pages!

The Washington Library is open to all researchers and scholars, by appointment only.

Virtual Tour Activities

Lesson purpose.

Use these pages alongside the Mount Vernon Virtual Tour to learn about George Washington, Mount Vernon, and 18th Century life.

These sheets are created by LifeGuard Teacher Fellows Mari L. Harris, Jennifer Schmidt, and Jamie Brown.

These Activity Sheets are scaffolded for Elementary School, Middle School, and High School levels. Click each link to download individual versions - or, click the "download" button at the bottom to download all.

Elementary School Virtual Tour Activities

Middle School Virtual Tour Activities

High School Virtual Tour Activities

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Virtual field trips: a teaching aid for remote English teaching

Virtual museum tours? Everything is possible. In this new article, we let you know how to take advantage of online exhibitions to continue increasing your interaction with your students. This is the perfect opportunity to bring them culture and life from the outside in a didactic manner on a screen.

Author:  Radhika Gholkar

Getting started

• Do some research into the types of tours that are available to choose the one most appropriate for your learners. Consider the content but also the type of audio/video support they provide (including language levels) and any wraparound resources.
• You will need to help learners become familiar with navigating the chosen website. These websites often require learners to use several functions, such as the arrow keys on the screen, screen tabs, etc., to virtually ‘move’ through a museum or a space station. It’s a good idea to do a quick orientation before you set up any activity.
• Planning is key. This will help learners stay on track, ensure you have appropriate content for your lesson and potentially reduce risks to your learners.
• There is often a lot happening in these virtual tours, so you may want to select specific artefacts or sections to focus on in the lesson. This will ensure your learners don’t get distracted on the website and stick to the task.
• Be clear about what the learning objectives are for your visit, in terms of both language and skills development.
• Most wildlife safaris are live, so you may want to find a recording for your lesson so you can plan according to what they see.

Ideas for pre-visit activities

• Send short reading/audiovisual content, related to the topic, as pre-visit tasks. This is a good way to provide input which will then be supported by the virtual tour.
• Set up activities which require learners to guess what the visit will be about. You can use jumbled words/phrases, incomplete pictures, audio description or clues.
• Announce the visit and ask learners to conduct interviews with friends and/or family members about the location of the visit – what do they know about it already?
• For a wildlife safari, you can ask learners to guess the animals they may see.
• For younger learners, raise curiosity by asking them to imagine what it will be like and draw a picture of what they expect to see.
• Give a list of three locations and ask learners to vote. To do this, they take a quick look at the tours to make their choice about which to look at in detail, with tasks.

Ideas for activities during the visit

• Guide your learners through a virtual tour yourself during the lesson and give information, with your learners answering questions you have shared with them.
• If the virtual tour helps you teach a topic or language point from your textbooks, you can teach those points and then take a short tour to ‘show’ what you taught.
• Teach directions using virtual tours. You can give a set of directions to different groups and ask them to locate the object or painting the directions lead to. This can also be a competition.
• Set up different locations for different groups and then come together to discuss what they saw.
• Set up a treasure hunt. Ask different groups to find a specific artefact and note the location and the information about the artefact.
• If you are using a wildlife safari, ask learners to write a story based on what they see.

Ideas for activities after the visit

• Do a quick quiz based on the virtual tour.
• Ask learners to create a virtual tour of their own homes, gardens or parks nearby.
• Set different writing tasks for learners. They can write stories, blogs, reviews, emails to friends/family or poems.
• Select four to five artefacts or objects that they have seen during the virtual tour. Ask the learners to find more information about these and then record a short audio file to introduce the object to the rest of the class.

Things to consider

• Permission and privacy: For kids and teenagers you’ll need to get make sure parents know about the virtual tours or wildlife safaris you are using for your lessons. You may want to orient parents to your lessons. Make sure you check privacy settings on the sites your learners will visit.
• Data usage: For these activities, learners will need good internet connectivity and a computer or a laptop.

External links

• An article from Time Out magazine with links to virtual tours:
• Virtual wildlife tours:
• Good Housekeeping’s list of best virtual tours:

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Sagamore Hill National Historic Site

Essential Question

1.What do the objects in Theodore Roosevelt's home express about the life of a president and his family? 2.How do students' homes compare to those of a home from the late 19th/early 20th century?

1.Students will be able to make inferences about the Roosevelt family and their time period using primary sources such as a virtual tour and historic photographs. 2.Students will be able to draw their own conclusions about the achievements and values of President Roosevelt and his family. 3.Students will be able to relate their lives to historical figures through the universal themes of family and home life.

Welcome to Sagamore Hill National Historic Site’s virtual field trip! We are excited to have you along for the journey! This field trip is designed to allow students from all over the country to experience a National Historic Site from their own computers, while also sparking their curiosity about the National Park Service and, of course, Theodore Roosevelt! This virtual field trip is expected to take approximately two to three forty-minute class periods, depending on your students and the amount of discussion included in the lesson. If you are looking for a shorter activity, any section of the field trip can be used on its own, allowing you to modify it to fit your time constraints. This field trip fits into any United States History course and would be taught during the Progressive Era unit as per New York State Standards. Although this virtual field trip is geared towards students in grades 4 through 8, this can easily be modified by teachers for high school students as well. Questions and suggestions regarding this lesson plan are welcome! Send an email to [email protected] Interested in inviting a Sagamore Hill park ranger to your classroom as virtual guest speaker? Send an email to [email protected] in advance of your lesson!

Preparation

• Materials needed: Internet Access (can be modified if Internet access is not available), Worksheets for each section of the field trip
• To start, the teacher will give some background to Theodore Roosevelt and Sagamore Hill. There is information included for the teacher in the background information section below, or the teacher can choose to use their own knowledge of Theodore Roosevelt.
• The students will all receive a copy of the field trip guide, digitally or hard copy, and begin to explore the house.
• If there is limited technology available, the teacher can make this a group field trip instead of an individual one by showing the websites and tours on the technology available and “walk through” the tour all together.
• There is also an option to put the students into smaller groups and have them hand in one assignment for the entire group.
• The students will follow the prompts, touring the house as they go through the questions.
• Once the students have completed their work, it can be submitted to the teacher or gone over together in class.

Contact Information

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Lesson Plans

Last updated: September 17, 2020

For Educators

The Arab American National Museum sees itself as a resource for enhancing the understanding of Arab American history, arts, culture and contributions. The Museum creates and promotes educational content for use by teachers both locally and nationally. For more information, please contact Dave Serio, Educator & Public Programming Specialist, at dserio “at” accesscommunity.org .

Virtual Tour Package

The Virtual Tour Package is a full and immersive experience that brings a wholistic picture of AANM to your group. This option gives teachers a full virtual package in which groups will have access to a kit of materials—recorded virtual tour videos, lesson plans, a quiz, activities, resources and much more—to utilize as they see fit. This package has materials that focus on AANM’s Core Galleries : Coming To America , Living In America and Making An Impact . With this package, educators/groups can utilize the materials at their leisure.

These interactive and educational digital resources give educators a first-class look into our exhibits and provide a wide range of tools for both the educator and their students, to bring a full, enriching experience to classrooms near and far.

Each virtual tour is a complete experience, including access to:

• A guided tour of AANM’s three Core Galleries
• Pre-Teaching exercises
• Interactive, educational and creative activities and lessons for students
• Video, audio and literary resources for the classroom
• Quiz template and answer key
• AANM’s digital objects and archive
• AANM Lesson Plans, which follow the Michigan Department of Education’s K-12 grade level content expectation standards in Social Studies, English & Language Arts and World Languages

Guided Tours

AANM offers high-quality educational and culturally enriching guided tours of our exhibits for groups and school groups, both in-person and virtually. Learn more on our Tours page

Additional Resources

Explore virtual versions of AANM’s Core Galleries: Contributions From the Arab World , Coming to America , Living in America and Making an Impact .

Core Galleries

• In many instances, lesson plans often don’t share the experiences and educational component of different groups, including Arab Americans. AANM offers a variety of lesson plans for educators to utilize, that educate classrooms about Arab Americans without excluding the story and history of other communities.
• All AANM lesson plans are linked with the Michigan Department of Education’s K-12 grade level content expectation standards in Social Studies, English & Language Arts and World Languages.

AANM Lesson Plans

Created in conjunction with Ann Arbor public school teachers and AANM, this Culture Box is available to educators for free. The box includes interactive and educational items including musical instruments, literature and more.

AANM invites educators from far and wide to attend one of our Educator Open House sessions. Here, educators in all fields will get a glimpse into the educational offerings of AANM and resources that can be used in their classroom.  

• AANM offers professional development opportunities for educators of all backgrounds. Spanning the course of a day or two, educators will have the opportunity to learn about the Arab American community’s history and culture through a series of workshops, panel discussions, arts and cultural programming and much more.
• Workshops allow educators to obtain unique AANM lesson plans along with cultural and educational knowledge on Arab Americans, have a safe space for questions and dialogue with experts in the field and discover useful resources to use in the classroom.
• We are looking for a small group of educators in the metro Detroit area to be a part of the Smithsonian Youth STEM Exchange program. If you are interested in being part of this initiative,  APPLY HERE .

Geared towards children ages 2-6, AANM’s English-Arabic Storytime series features an archive of online storytime videos around different themes, where a storyteller reads picture books in both English and Arabic, teaching a few Arabic words and phrases. Select storytimes are accompanied by activity worksheets.

English-Arabic Storytime

These family stories are created in the Community History Studio at AANM. Participants can use the studio to scan copies of photos and documents, record audio and combine their words and images in a digital scrapbook.

Watch Digital Scrapbooks

Written by acclaimed author and researcher Randa Kayyali with AANM, this introductory-level, 52-page book offers an overview of Arab American immigration history, including the recent influx of immigrants, and touches on the themes of religion, cultural traditions and the impact of media stereotyping. It includes graphs, maps and historical images of the Arab American community, many never before published.

• View and download for free  
• Purchase hard copy from The AANM Store

Made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services

For more information or questions please contact Dave Serio, Educator & Public Programming Specialist, at dserio “at” accesscommunity.org .

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Click the image below to take an eight-minute guided tour of the Erie Canal Museum. Check our YouTube channel for more educational videos!

Follow along with the video using this information hunt  to get even more out of your virtual tour!

Lesson Plans and Activities for Elementary Students

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Erie Canal Mapping Activity

When the COVID-19 crisis forced schools to close, public broadcaster WCNY and the Syracuse City School District created the TV Classroom network to provide educational content to area students. We participated in this project with a class about the Erie Canal, which can be viewed by clicking this link: WCNY Erie Canal Lesson . We’re pleased to offer the lessons and activities that accompany this class below.

Mapping New York and the Erie Canal is a downloadable PDF created for elementary school students in line with New York State Social Studies Standards.

Mapping New York and the Erie Canal

Downloadable coloring sheets

Download and print our coloring sheets for your students or family. Each sheet includes interesting facts about the Erie Canal.

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Baking Oliver Wendell Petrie’s Erie Canal Brownies: A Fun Lesson

In the 1930s, Oswego, New York native Oliver Wendell Petrie went to work as a cook on an oil tanker that traveled between Chicago and New York City using the Erie and Oswego canals. Thanks to Petrie’s family, the Museum archives contain a number of his personal items, including his recipe book. These items offer an interesting look into the life of a worker on New York’s 20th century canals. Learn more about Petrie by reading  The Life and Times of a Canal Boat Cook   by Museum Educator Derrick Pratt.

We have also created a fun lesson plan using Mr. Petrie’s brownie recipe. Teach New York State and Canal history, basic math, and other subjects while baking a batch of brownies! Click here  to download the lesson plan, ingredient cards, and recipe. Enjoy!

Historic Photo Comparison Activity

In this activity, students have the opportunity to use their critical thinking skills by answering questions about historic photographs of the canal and co mparing the m to each other. This is a great activity to do before visiting the museum on a field trip to get students thinking about the Erie Canal!

Erie Canal Photo Comparison

Erie Canal Trivia Game

Race across New York State and show off how much you learned during your visit to the Erie Canal Museum with this fun trivia game!

Further Resources for Elementary Teachers

Want more information and resources for teaching the Erie Canal to young children? Check out this list of resources:

Lesson Plans and Activities for Middle and High School Students

The transforming effects of the erie canal: a virtual lesson.

Museum Educator Derrick Pratt created this lesson using primary documents from the digital collections of the Erie Canal Museum and the Canal Society of New York. The lesson includes links to nine documents and a set of questions about each. Students may download the question sheet as a PDF or Word document. Each document number is a link to the document and information about it. The lesson also includes an essay question and some helpful websites.

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Student projects: The Erie Canal and the Industrial Revolution

Click this   link   for two pages of student activities related to the Erie Canal and the Industrial Revolution. These activities are appropriate for any student who has studied or is studying the Canal’s economic and political origins, its construction, its impact on society, and its connection to the Industrial Revolution. We are very grateful to Rebecca Stephens, a seventh-grade social studies teacher in the Fayetteville-Manlius Central School District near Syracuse, New York, for developing and sharing these activities. Ms. Stephens developed them over the past several years as part of an innovative and engaging week-long Erie Canal unit. She serves on the Erie Canal Museum’s Teacher Advisory Board, and has also lent her expertise to Mount Vernon and the National Constitution Center.

Pathways of Resistance: A Critical Look at the Canal

This grant-funded project takes a critical look at the effects of the Erie Canal on several marginalized communities, including: the Haudenosaunee, enslaved people & the practice of slavery in upstate New York, and the many immigrants drawn by the canal for work. This curriculum is created with 7th grade students in mind. 

Virtual walking tour of historic Syracuse

Click the link below to take a virtual tour of significant architectural works in Syracuse, New York, sites of local and national importance, and notable Erie Canal influences that remain to this day. Follow along at home or head down to Clinton Square and take the walking tour yourself!

The History of the Erie Canal in Syracuse

Interested in learning more about the Erie Canal and its history? Visit the page below!

• The Erie Canal

Visit the page below to learn more about the 1850 National Register Syracuse Weighlock Building. It’s the Museum’s most important artifact, and the only one of its kind in the country.

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More activities and lesson plans will be added to this page soon, so be sure to check back often!

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