Virtual Field Trip Lesson Plan
Internet Classroom Activity for Literature or History Classrooms
Technology allows students to take educational field trips, even when funding isn't available, when they create travel brochures that support learning objectives.
Imagine how inspired students would be if the world were truly their classroom. What if they could visit Mark Twain’s Hannibal while studying The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or take a trip to the Yorktown Battlefields while studying the Revolutionary War? How about a visit to Thomas Edison’s home and laboratory in West Orange, New Jersey?
Luckily for today’s teachers and students, the Internet has the power to bring the world to the classroom. When the destination is too far or too expensive, students can still experience a virtual tour. Students will learn plenty as they use their imaginations to create an educational travel itinerary and brochure for almost a historic, scientific, or literary destination.
Creating a Multi-Disciplinary Educational Travel Itinerary and Travel
Content Areas: Technology use, research, art/fine motor skills, expository writing
Materials: Example brochures, Rectangular Cardstock (8 1/2" X 11" or larger); Computer with Word Processing (or, better yet, publishing) Software, Internet Connection, and Color Printer; Colored Pencils and/or Magic Markers if Publishing Software is Not Available.
Activities:
- Assign individual students or small groups a topic in support of your curriculum objectives. (Example: "John Steinbeck's California").
- Provide students with examples of tri-fold travel brochures. Discuss what details "sell" a destination. Determine what types of details travelers would want to see in a brochure advertising a literary or historic tour.
- Provide an assignment sheet and assessment rubric (Classroom Management Strategies: be sure to assign weighted percentages to assessed areas that are appropriate to unit and course objectives) which asks the students to create a one-page educational field trip itinerary with dates and times for a three-day (long weekend) field trip, an MLA Works Cited page, and a separate tri-fold travel brochure to promote the trip (created manually or, if available, using publishing software). Provide specific instructions for content in each of the six (front and back) columns (Ex: 1- A visually appealing introductory frame that adequately summarizes what the trip will offer, 2- a short biography or history of the topic. This section should be descriptive and entertaining so that it will invite readers to want to explore the subject further, 3/4/5 - at least three folds dedicated to topic-specific destinations that are included on the tour, and 6- tour prices, name and contact information for the tour company, and a map of key locations.
- Ask students to use the Internet to research to their topic and possible appropriate destinations (Ex: for a John Steinbeck trip, students might want to take travelers to Monterrey, California, to see Cannery Row and on a walking tour from to the Steinbeck Center in nearby Salinas.
- Students should use write with vivid description and include appropriate and appealing illustrations or maps (Teaching Tip: Help students to avoid plagiarism by asking them to include small-print parenthetical citations with any illustrations). If publication software is not available, students can type up their writing on regular word processing software the information in a 10 or 12 font in columns designed to fit the tri-fold pamphlet.
- On the due date, students should turn in a travel itinerary, a tri-fold travel brochure, and a reference page.
Be sure to allow students to share and exhibit the projects. Perhaps have a panel of teachers and administrators vote on the best-planned and presented project.
