Take your students to great museums online

Instructor, Jan-Feb, 2004 by AnJanette Brush, Joy Brewster

Museums provide unique learning opportunities that can help bring your curriculum to life. But you no longer have to schedule a field trip to reap all of the benefits! From virtual tours to lesson plans and activities, the best museum Web sites have much to offer students and teachers. Here, we have highlighted a few must-see sites that offer purposeful and meaningul information, collections, and activities for the classroom. Many of these sites work best with high bandwidth Web access, but plenty of their resources can be accessed without the newest technology. So whatever your tech set-up, click on and enjoy virtual visits to these museums all over the world.

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State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia

Setting the Scene

Russia's State Hermitage Museum exhibits world culture and art from the Stone Age to the 20th century. Its beautiful Web site offers extensive resources to enhance your art history and social studies curricula. Start with a "Virtual Visit"--the panoramic views here show the grandeur of the galleries and will give students a feel for what it's like to visit the museum in person. Then head to the "Virtual Exhibitions" area of the site, which displays digital photographs of objects from around the world and throughout history, linked by theme.

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A Rich Digital Collection

The Hermitage collection includes more than three million items. Many of its objects can be seen as beautiful high-resolution images in the site's "Digital Collection." Whether your class is studying the Middle Ages, European history, or world art, students can explore the museum's machinery, jewelry, furniture, carriages, applied arts, arms, and textiles. Where else can children admire 500-year-old clothing, a suit of medieval armor, and the jewels of a Russian queen, all online?

Virtual Academies

To add an engaging twist to your history units, try having your students attend the Hermitage site's "Virtual Academies." "Time of Knights" presents fascinating stories about castles, coats of arms, crusades, tournaments, hunting, and feasts. And "Ancient Egypt" will teach your students about the history, geography, religion, architecture, and writing of that period and region.

American Museum of Natural History (OLogy) New York, NY

Drawing Kids In

As students will learn on the American Museum of Natural History's OLogy Web site, -ology means "the study of." With an appealing, playful design, this site is a great tool for encouraging kids to explore the sciences.

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Access to Experts

Each focus area includes a "Meet the OLogists" section, where children can learn directly from a scientist. Kids can vote on questions to ask experts, read about a typical workday, and learn how museums support scientists' work.

Stuff to Do

The site covers archaeology, astronomy, genetics, and more, and features hands-on activities for each of these areas under "Stuff To Do." The paleontology section, for example, offers a quiz to assess students' dinosaur knowledge as well as instructions for drawing dinosaurs. And ready-to-print pages of dino skeletons are available for quick, useful handouts. Elsewhere, students can learn how to make moon-phase flipbooks and DNA bracelets. Even Einstein becomes accessible with a "Space Jell-O" activity that explains how space bends around different kinds of matter.

Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC

A Wealth of Resources

This site showcases some of the best interactive features of the 16 Smithsonian museums--from the National Portrait Gallery to the National Zoo. There's an amazing amount of information here, and there's something for just about every lesson and every student's interest. For some of the interactive features you'll need Flash, but plenty of the resources here don't require extra plug-ins.

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Interactive IdeaLabs

The "IdeaLabs" section of the site offers terrific activities for every content area. For example, "Mr. President: Profiles of our Nation's Leaders" brings American history to life online. With handy summaries and portraits of each president, it's a great place for research, homework help, or just browsing.

Everything Art

While the other areas of the site deserve a look, the "Everything Art" section stands out as a treasure trove of visual information. See "Women of Our Time" for a beautiful collection of photographs of famous 20th-century women, an excellent resource for Women's History Month in March. As part of a study of Africa, take a look at "African Masks," which offers a display of traditional and contemporary African art. And to supplement your American history studies, look at "Buffalo Hide Painting." Here students can zoom in on a hide painting and use clues from other objects, images, and oral traditions to interpret elements of it.

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The Monterey Bay Aquarium, Monterey Bay, CA

Ready-to-Use Activities

A favorite destination of visitors to Northern California, the Monterey Bay Aquarium has produced a noteworthy site full of great things to do, see, and learn. Start your visit by looking under "Teachers & Kids" for easy online games and "Print & Do" activities.