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NY Hall of Science’s Virtual Visit Program
by Jim McDermott

I want to share one of my favorite local distance resources — the NY Hall of Science in Your Classroom program. For all of you who want to expand the boundaries of learning beyond your classroom and tap into the richness of distance learning experiences, look no farther than Queens, NY. Through a series of well-designed science units, NY Hall of Science can partner with your class to introduce them to virtual learning by bringing museum experts into your classroom virtually.

So what happens is they send you materials for pre-visit lessons — everything from lesson plans, handout materials, and science materials (our class did the “Hidden Kingdoms: World of Microbes” unit so we got petri dishes of bacteria to analyze under our microscopes). You do the lessons with the children which prepares them for the virtual session.

In our setup, we had two screens set up in the classroom. On one screen was the museum expert who conducted the lesson virtually using Skype. He could see the whole class and students came close to the camera to ask questions. On the other screen was a Smartboard connected to an Elluminate session with his USB microscope pointing to live microbes. Students interacted with the Smartboard by circling the different types of microbes and identifying parts — of LIVE microbes.

This rich learning experience is one I certainly won’t forget which is why I’m a big proponent of trying these types of lessons in your classrooms. The culmination of this activity would be a trip to the museum itself.

Check out NY Hall of Science in Your Classroom program and see how this can work for you.