Virtual tours are a great way to experience places or experiences all around the world from home. As someone who has always been interested in travel but haven’t had much opportunity, I used to occasionally google a place that I had never been and drop into street view to ‘tour’ a new city. The virtual tour is another way to visit different places, experiences, museums, and more. This can be a way for people to learn or explore ideas and places through a few clicks of the mouse.
The 7 New Wonders of the World tour on Google Expeditions offers the chance to view these wonders from beautiful aerial views (2018). The tour begins with the Taj Mahal and you can move through each wonder, one at a time via a clickable arrow on the bottom of the screen. When using your mouse to move the perspective of your 360 view of your current wonder, you will see clickable icons, offering an explanation of what is notable about the area and giving a short paragraph on the site and its significance (7 New Wonders of the World, 2018). This is not just useful for education but for developing interest and introduction to history and cultures around the world.
Even as an adult I found this to be a cool and educational experience that renewed my interest in these areas and sparked a renewed desire to continue to explore others area via the virtual tour. Google Expeditions takes the virtual tour beyond the geographical areas of the world. There were ‘tours’ of anatomy lessons and a book tour called Ara the Star Engineer (Google Expeditions, 2018). I think kids and teenagers would also find this to be an interesting and worthwhile way to learn about not just significant areas around the world but to tour museums, national parks, and other educational tools.
References
Google Expeditions. (2018, April 25). Google Expeditions: 7 New Wonders of the World. Retrieved July 1, 2020, from https://poly.google.com/view/8v-I0wldO1r.
Google Expeditions. (2018, November 1). Google Expeditions: Ara the Star Engineer. Retrieved July 1, 2020, from https://poly.google.com/view/04kXCpwyoi0.
Google Expeditions. (2018, April 16). Google Expeditions: Angel Falls. Retrieved July 1, 2020, from https://poly.google.com/view/2eclGHHBwYu.
This is a great resource, especially as I come from a social studies background. Being able to “tour” the landmarks and places we teach about will engage students so much more than simply putting up a photo. I also think there are a lot of ways librarians could use these tours either as part of a lesson with a book or even with displays (if there is access to leaving a laptop or computer up with the virtual tour page).