With the fuel crisis driving travel costs to historic highs, schools are looking for cheap alternatives to the traditional "field trip". One idea they've come up with is the virtual reality field trip via technology. Here's a story out of Stockton that tells one school's solution for not being able to drive the two-plus hours to see the elephant seals on our own coast! How sorry is that?
The idea of comparing this with an actual field trip makes me dizzy, but that's not to say it wouldn't be a good way to prepare kids for an upcoming experience or to let them see something from someplace very far away. Here's a short excerpt from the story:
When seventh graders in Stockton took a field trip this week to see elephant seals, they didn't even step outside their school. Instead, with the help of a projector and a video camera, the students teleconferenced with a state park guide on the California coast.Across a distance of 100 miles, students on the so-called "virtual field trip" got to talk with the guide, watch seals throw sand on themselves, and hear the blubbery beasts belch and bark – all without a yellow bus or permission slip.
"If you can't go somewhere, this can be the next best thing," says Craig Wedegaertner, an administrator at Marshall Middle School in Stockton. "Or, it can be used to prepare [students] before they go there."
As the days grow long and the school calendar short, field trip season is in full swing. But with fuel prices rocketing, some schools are discovering virtual field trips as a cost-effective way to add new – or farther afield – excursions.
Field trips? I don't know where the teachers will find the time to squeeze a field trip in the school day, if you consider how much they have to teach and fulfill the NCLB guidelines.
Albert,
You are right on the spot. Field trips aren't on the test, and most districts are being slowly strangled with ways to "improve test scores." If NCLB is allowed to remain in force, you can probably kiss the ol' field trip good-bye.
(Gail, "high fuel prices" are a red herring for the public. The real reason for this virtual field trip is to "increase reading skills" not save fuel costs.)