Elyse Hauser
If you’ve got kids, you might feel like you barely got the hang of homeschooling, only to be faced with a new problem: summer break. In a season when travel and socializing are still risky, how can you make summer a fun educational time?
The Nature Conservancy has one answer: virtual field trips.
While virtual experiences can never replace the real thing, they can be a blessing for both school-age learners and bored adults. The Nature Conservancy’s field trips are aimed at grades 5 through 8, but can easily work for any age with a few tweaks.
Each of their “trips” includes a guide for teachers, activities for students, and a video to transport you to natural habitats around the world. You can “visit” everywhere from coastal Peru to the rainforests of Borneo on a field trip. Some trips are also focused more on concepts than locations, like renewable energy or coral restoration.
To get started, all you need to do is visit The Nature Conservancy’s website. Then, queue up the video for the field trip you want to take, download the teacher guide, and get ready to learn!
With summer’s spare time on hand, you can even turn each “trip” into a deep-dive learning experience. After watching the video, you could cook up a meal from the location it featured, or find a related nature documentary on Netflix. These virtual field trips are a great example of how education and entertainment can go hand in hand—check them out here!
