Waterloo/Marshall Courier: “Did you see the big sphinx? It scared me,” one student said as he looked into a cardboard box.
Another student was amazed at the pillars around the Taj Mahal, while a student in another class commented on how small Mt. Everest appeared.
With the Google Expedition Pioneer Program, middle school students at Marshall were able to see the world without leaving the classroom April 14.
Expedition is a new product being introduced by Google that allows teachers to take their students on virtual field trips. The goal is to give students a deeper understanding of the world beyond the classroom.
Expeditions is a virtual reality platform built for the classroom. Expeditions are guided tours of places school buses can’t go. They are comprised of virtual reality panoramas and led by the teacher. The ideal is to bring classroom lessons to life.
“It was like being in the sky and seeing below, the glaciers and the snow,” eighth-grade student Ariana Serrano said about Antarctica. “It was cool how you can move around and see everything. I saw sea lions and different types of penguins.”