Digital Mapping and Virtual Field Trip Resources for Teachers and Students


Students need to see the world to better understand the world. Maps are a useful tool for many of us in our day-to-day lives, but too often classrooms don't take advantage of all the incredible digital resources that are connected to maps and virtual field trips.

Today I wanted to share some incredible resources to bring the world to your students.

Maps and Virtual Field Trips can provide classrooms with some incredible opportunities to create lessons to engage students in collaboration, creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration.

Here are some resources connected to Digital Maps and Virtual Field Trips that classroom teachers may find useful. 
  • City Guesser
    Similar to Geoguessr, but instead the game plays a full-screen video of a random location anywhere around the world.
  • Geoguessr
    The game uses Street View images to drop the player in a random location and then challenges explorers to figure out where in the world they've landed using visual clues.
  • Geotastic
    Geography trivia game with different game modes, including random street views, popular landmarks, and a flag guessing mode. There’s also a country-guessing mode that requires you to guess the correct country using clues and hints.
  • Google Applied Digital Skills
    There are several lessons in the Applied Digital Skills Curriculum connected to maps and virtual field trips including, "Create a Guide to an Area", "Create a Community My Map", and "Analyze Data from Images in Google Earth Engine".
  • Google Arts & Culture
    There are almost too many incredible places to explore in Arts and Culture. Get started by exploring "Places", "It's a Wonderful World", "360 Videos", "Nearby Places" and so much more. Learn more about Google Arts and Culture by exploring this cheat sheet. 
  • Google Drawings
    While not a mapping tool, a map can be inserted and manipulated using drawing tools. Learn more using Google Drawings in the classroom here.
  • Google Earth
    Take a chance and discover someplace new by clicking on the "I'm Feeling Lucky" icon or take a "Voyage" If you are new to "Voyages, be sure to explore, "This is School", "This is Home", and "The Hidden Worlds of the National Parks". Learn more about Google Earth by exploring this cheat sheet. 
  • Google Earth Engine
    Google Earth Engine brings together more than 40 years of historical and current global satellite imagery, along with the tools and computational power necessary to analyze and mine that vast data warehouse.
  • Google Earth Projects
    Projects replaced "Tour Builder" a few years ago. Tour Builder is an incredible resource for teachers or students to create their own virtual tours.
  • Google Expeditions
    Google Expeditions has become part of Google Arts and Culture. Using Expeditions, teachers can take students on immersive, virtual journeys.
  • My Maps
    Create custom maps to share online with Google My Maps. Google Earth Education has a great resource site to get started with My Maps.
  • National Geographic Mapping Resources
    Collection of mapping resources. 
  • Street View Treks
    Trek the world with Google Maps. Travel with the team as they collect Street View cultural, historical, and geographical wonders.
  • YouTube
    YouTube hosts a huge collection of videos to engage students in exploring our world. There are some incredible 360 video tours in Google Arts and Culture, which allow the viewer to change the view of the video. There are also a host of incredible channels to explore our world, including "NatGeoExpeditions", "BBC Earth", and "Zoo Tours".
Explore More (Pun Intended)
How could you incorporate these into your student's learning? What other digital mapping resources do you use? Feel free to share in the comments below. #AlwaysLearning 


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