Create Your Own VFT Project Assignment
Background
Nearly any classroom project can become a Virtual Field Trip! Try starting with a project-based assignment you’ve used before and think about how it could be reimagined as a VFT. Or, dream up something completely new!
To-Do
Craft your VFT project:
- Identify the learning objectives of the project. What concepts or skills should students showcase in their final VFT product?
- Create your VFT Project Assignment. Review example VFT assignments on the Make a VFT page, to use as a template. Just make sure to update the criteria and audience that students should design for to match your goals!
- Consider media that fits the project focus. Because of the place-based and visual nature of VFTs, it is important that the concepts at the core of the project can be represented by visible elements in a space. For example, if a project is about erosion, you may want to find media that shows a sandy beach or crumbling cliff.
- If you’re struggling to think of places, or elements in a place that could clearly represent the concepts students should explain in their VFT project, you may want to adapt your project assignment, or even go back to step 1 and consider a different project focus.
- Certain topics are trickier to capture in a Virtual Field Trip—like ideas that occur on very large or small scales, or changes over time. That doesn’t mean you can’t make a VFT about something like cellular division—it just means you’ll need to get creative in how you plan for your students to bring those ideas to life.
- Collect or capture your 360° VFT media. Repurpose VFT media provided in assignments on our website, find new media online, or create your own! Cross-check each image with your project assignment to make sure that there are visible elements in each image that connect to the project criteria. If not, find new images, or adapt the assignment.
- In some cases you may not be able find images that capture all of the concepts you wish students to represent in their VFT. For example, it can be challenging to find 360° images that capture animals for a biodiversity project. A workaround for cases like this could be to ask students to add tags to the landscape with images of animals that live there, positioned in places where they might live.