Thanks to some really cool technology, Mrs. Granza’s seventh grade science class was able to get a bird’s-eye view of several prominent volcanoes around the world.
The “virtual-reality” field trip was made possible through the Oneida-Herkimer-Madison BOCES’ School Library System, which lends a Google Expeditions kit to its component school districts, like Westmoreland, to use. 
The kit contains a tablet and mobile phones pre-installed with the Google Expeditions app, virtual-reality viewers, a router that allows Expeditions to run over its own local Wi-Fi network, chargers and a storage case. Google Expeditions is an immersive education app that allows students and their teachers to explore the world through more than 800 virtual-reality and 100 augmented-reality tours - - or take a virtual-reality field trip to just about anywhere in the world.
Mrs. Davis, ZI3 coordinator at the Westmoreland Central School District, says there are explorations for students in grades K-12 that cover topics in science, history, arts and culture. On March 26, she guided Mrs. Granza’s class on a virtual-reality trip to the Mount Bromo Volcano in Indonesia, Karymsky Volcano in Russia, Erta Ale Volcano in Ethiopia, Kilauea Volcano in Hawaii and Yellowstone Caldera located in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming.
The sights provided for an amazing, educational experience.
“Students were able to view various lava lakes, craters, thermal hot springs, glacial ice covered with fallen ash, fountains of lava, gas emissions and snow covered volcanoes,” Mrs. Davis said.
Leading up to the virtual-reality experience, Mrs. Granza’s students studied earth’s various systems and types of volcanoes. Mrs. Davis says the virtual-reality trips are intended to compliment what students are already learning, while making things “more real.”
“By seeing it, they understand more about what they are studying,” Mrs. Davis said. “Many students may never have the opportunity to visit a real volcano, and this could be as close as they could ever come to one.”
According to Mrs. Davis, the virtual-reality viewers, or “goggles,” work by placing an iPod or smart phone with the virtual-reality tour of choice into a holder that sits inside the goggles. Once placed over your eyes, the goggles project a 3-D image. As a user walks or moves his or her head, the image moves as well, creating the illusion that you are really in a particular environment, like exploring a volcano.
Mrs. Davis says the Google Expeditions kit is available to any classroom in the district. First grade classes, studying animals and their habitats, have used the kit to visit a rain forest, desert, temperate forest and beneath the ocean. Meantime, fifth grade classes have used the kit to visit several extraterrestrial planets, complimenting their study of outer space. Most recently, Mr. LaFlamme’s sixth grade social studies classes visited Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome.
“There are so many opportunities to have classes benefit from this extraordinary tool,” Mrs. Davis said.
And take an amazing, educational field trip thousands of miles away without ever leaving the classroom.