The creation of a virtual field trip using Google Earth was no small feat! It was definitely an involved process, but one that I found to be well worth the effort in the end. It was a challenge for me, at first, to decide upon a topic to explore using Google Earth, since the subject areas I am primarily responsible for are 6th grade language arts and science. Then it occured to me that I could create a virtual field trip for the Gifted Literature Study course I teach. Each school year, my gifted litereature students read 11 short stories from the Junior Great Books program and participate in literature circle discussions and other activities related to those stories. All of the stories share a common theme of "coming of age," but they take place in very diverse settings. This project presented me with the perfect opportunity to have students explore those settings through Google Earth.
For my virtual field trip, I chose four of the stories from the curriculum and plotted each of their locations (Harlem in New York City; Paris, France; Warsaw, Poland; and Jerusalem) on the globe. As students visit each plotted location, they will be directed to explore the geography and layout of the town, including nearby schools and buildings, and describe their observations. Students will also be directed to visit exteral websites that provide more detailed information about these towns/cities to gather information. At the conclusion of their "world tour," students will complete a writing assignment through Discovery Education. They will choose two of the four stories that were presented in the virtual field trip. This essay has two goals: The first is to explain how the setting of each story might have affected the protagonists and the process of growing up. The second is to compare and contrast the coming of age of the protagonists in their respective settings to what it is like to be a teenager today. The major instructional goal of this entire activity is for students to understand more about the history and culture behind the settings of these stories and to make text-to-self connections illustrating the differences and similarities between the students' own lives and those of the stories' characters.
This activity lends itself nicely to developing the respectful mind and ethical mind. Students must work to understand and accept cultural differences as they explore each unique story location, which correlates to the respectful mind. For the ethical mind, students are exploring similarities and shared connections between citizens of different countries, as well as common themes of humanity that we all share.
I look forward to using this virtual field trip at the conclusion of next year's Gifted Literature Study class and developing other projects using Google Earth!
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