Schools may not always have the time or resources to take as many field trips as they would like. But thanks to online resources, teachers can take their classes on virtual trips to places like zoos, art museums, historical landmarks, or even outer space!
Check out twenty of the best virtual field trips for elementary school students. With these fun learning resources, you can plan many exciting activities from the comfort of your classroom.
1. San Diego Zoo: With this interactive website, you can take your kids to the San Diego Zoo any day, no matter where you live! Students can learn exciting animal facts, explore exhibits in real time, and play fun games and activities.
2. Stellarium: With this interactive site, students can look at constellations across the night sky. You can learn star or constellation names quickly, or learn more in-depth facts like a star’s distance from Earth and what its name means.
3. Van Gogh Museum: Explore the life and art of post-impressionist painter Vincent Van Gogh, one of the most celebrated artists who has ever lived. Take a virtual trip to
the Netherlands to tour the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.
4. Virtual Farm Tours: Learn more about the wonders of agriculture with your students through this panoramic tour of farms in Ontario, Canada. Your students can learn how dairy products are made, see farmers harvest fruit or eggs, and even explore specialty farms like an emu or deer ranch.
5. Sustainable Futures: This virtual field trip from Discovery Education has an eco-friendly focus, teaching students about people working to protect the environment and the movements to achieve that goal.
6. “The Secrets of Easter Island” Tour: Learn why the famous stone megaliths were created and what archeologists know about the civilization who made them through a virtual tour of Easter Island created by PBS Kids.
7. Son Doong Cave: Did you know that the largest cave in the world is located in the middle of a rainforest? For an especially exciting science lesson, enjoy a 360-view of Son Doong Cave along with fascinating facts.
8. The Secret Lives of Corals: Join scientist Joe Pollock from The National Conservancy to teach students about coral reefs and the ocean creatures who call them home.
9. Walk on Mars: With virtual tours, even the sky is no limit. Thanks to NASA’s Curiosity rover, your students can explore the surface of Mars in a 360-degree view while learning facts about space exploration.
10. Ellis Island: This interactive resource from Scholastic and the National Parks Service can take students back in time to Ellis Island in the twentieth century. Learn about the island’s historical significance along with the stories of modern-day young immigrants.
11. The Great Wall of China: This panoramic tour allows you to walk through one of the oldest and most historically significant human-made wonders of the world.
12. Smithsonian Museum of Natural History: The Smithsonian offers virtual tours of current and previous exhibits, which can teach your students about a wide variety of fun science topics including what dinosaur fossils can be found in America, and what butterflies need to survive.
13. International Space Station: Take NASA’s virtual tour of the ISS to learn how daily life is out of this world for the astronauts who live and work in space.
14. Galileo Museum: Your students can enjoy learning about the astronomer Galileo Galilei and his best-known discoveries through a virtual tour of the Galileo Museum in Italy.
15. Yellowstone National Park Virtual Field Trip: Yellowstone is one of the most popular and breathtaking national parks in the United States. With this virtual tour, you and your students can view nature’s wonders with landmarks like the Old Faithful geyser, the Mammoth Hot Spots, and the Fountain Paint Pot.
16. What Can You Learn from a Polar Bear?: This virtual field trip takes students to Churchill, Manitoba in Canada, where they can learn about polar bears and the habitat they live in.
17. Versailles: You can tour the historic French palace of Versailles using Google Arts and Culture. Plus, you can use the accompanying articles and videos to plan a social studies lesson around the field trip.
18. Women’s History Museum: Use these online exhibits from the Women’s History Museum to learn about women who broke barriers, uplifted their communities, and changed lives throughout U.S. history.
19. China’s Great Forest: In this virtual field trip around the world, scientist Yue Wang teaches students about the flora and fauna that live in China’s forest habitats, including the famous giant pandas.
20. Online Tour of the Louvre: The Louvre museum in Paris, France is one of the most renowned art galleries in the world. You can explore some of their exhibits in class as you visit their website. Take your students on a cultural tour of Ancient Egyptian artifacts, nineteenth-century Romanticism paintings, and other fascinating collections.
Looking for more classroom resources and activities? Here are free foldable book resources to teach print concepts skills to elementary learners. Pick a destination for your virtual field trip and add a foldable book activity to extend the learning fun!
