Adventures
At the Children's Museum in Canada (muse) exhibits are arranged especially for virtual field trips to different regions...
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At the Children's Museum in Canada (muse) exhibits are arranged especially for virtual field trips to different regions. Followup discussion for British Columbia occurs at the netbistro. Most action at the National Hurricane Center (accessible via NOAA)occurs in the summer. A large climatic data base is available via NOAA also. NOAA is developing Wind and Sea, a focused learning area in which of the 750 selected links 40% are unique to this site. Access this site and save a lot of search time!
Wings typifies the many Web sites designed for virtual tourists, another benefit of telecommunications. The Natural History Museum in the UK, while similar in most of its exhibits to other museum, just prepared a 400 million-year old fossil specimen in VRML (virtual reality modeling language); viewers can rotate and perform other manipulations on this amazing find. Adventureonline(formerly globalearn) signs up students to accompany onsite folks to such places as the Black Sea countries and Central Asia and South America--virtually. Students prepare for these expeditions, like the few real trekkers, and correspond with them as they go from place to place.One family has just begun a 3 year re-tracing of Magellan's explorations. Of course, most students spend only one year in a classroom but this project would be very interesting for middle-schoolers. Checking over such a long period of time would truly convey what exploration was all about.
AskAsia is sponsoring a biking adventure in Vietnam. Free classroom kits provide background and participation information. For extra spice two contests will be held, recognizing teacher implementation. To learn about the Cambodian Holocaust (2 million Cambodians slaughtered by the Khmer Rouge) look at the Yale site.
A few folks enjoy spelunking or exploration of deep underground caves, like Colossal Cave. The photos and explanation of this natural phenomenon are not expecially innovative but the tour of the cave flips up in a separate window with alternative paths, easier to depict with technology than hardcopy. You can wend your way back to the entrance or exit anytime from the cave itself in case you feel a little closed in!
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Unlike wonderful but passive films on cable television, these adventures are interactive.We hope that a virtual trek will encourage students to do the real thing!
The site for RealKids, RealAdventures (a video series)brings this topic closer to home via stories of heroic kids and writing tips--an extension for the above adventures.
