WEBCAMS IN THE CLASSROOM
BY:
Jennifer Sterling
Butterflies – In this activity students can spend time learning
about butterflies. The teacher can make
a type of online scavenger hunt were students find various information about butterflies
including how they develop and what kinds of foods they eat. They can then get an up close look at some of
them feeding and emerging from a cocoon on the Butterfly Conservatories butterfly cams.
Mammals – Each student would be required to find information
on a mammal of there choice. One of the requirements
of this assignment is to view a webcam of that animal. Many zoos and other animal exhibits have
webcams. This will allow students to not
only see the mammal in its habitat but also view its behavior. Here is an example of a webcam from the San
Diego Zoo of the panda
Bai Yun.
Wildlife In Your Own Backyard – In this activity, students will spend some time observing
the various animals that live with them in their own backyard such as raccoons and
deer. This webcam gives an up close and
personal view of the animals that we rarely see this close. Students will be asked to view the webcam for ten
minutes and then spend sometime writing what they saw in their journal.
Volcanoes – During a lesson students will learn how volcanoes evolve
and the history of some of the very volcanoes that are around today. Then the student will get to spend some time
viewing them for themselves. For this
lesson, it will be important to have the webcam projected on a screen because
it is such a slow moving event at times.
It may also be a good idea to pull up a variety of webcams so students
can view the differences in various volcanoes.
Here are two webcams that are helpful on Mount
St. Helens and Mt. Fuji.
National Parks – For this activity, students will spend some time
in the computer lab learning about the history of the national parks. Then they will view various webcams from
different parks across