A Pirate Lesson...Virtual Field Trip Style

Today was another extraordinary day at school.  We had just wrapped up our Energy Madness unit yesterday with two incredible rounds of discussions.  It felt like (and students spoke to) learning much beyond the content, including skills around the interactions with one another, as well as discovered a newly found  passion for their topic.  More will follow on this experience in the future!

But today became another golden ticket lesson.  After finishing up debates, my co-teacher and I wanted to do something around the topic of energy efficiency, including an energy audit that student's would do about their homes.  In looking for a video about energy efficiency to hook students into the topic,  I found a treasure-Bill Nye talking about the energy efficiency additions to his home.


Then...that's where my mind went wild.  What if we could take a virtual field trip to his house via Google Maps? I started class with a story about how Bill Nye could have possibly been one of my biggest "scientific crushes" growing up.  We then told students that we were going to travel to his house virtually and we did so via Google Maps.  Students were hooked, but for them Google Maps wasn't enough; they wanted it in 3-D and asked if we could do the same trip in Google Earth.

That's where it all came together.  As we zoomed in, you could see the solar panels on his garage that he later referenced in the video that we watched!  Students couldn't believe it was true and actually commented on how that was kind of "creepy" that we could locate that much information online.

I was reminded today at how important creativity is in designing lessons, how stories become great hooks, and how great hooks engage students.  If you can't get students out of the building for a lesson, then why not cross state lines?  These are some of the moments that I treasure most in the classroom!

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