Staying inside isn’t stopping math teacher Kortney Smith from helping students see the outside world at a time when they can’t.

“I decided to incorporate some self care this week as an alternative to just math all week,” teacher Kortney Smith said. “Also, as a math teacher I am limited in cool field trips that I can take my students on. So the idea of virtual field trips was something that appealed to me.”

Students had an assignment with a new experience everyday.

“I think the labs were really fun because they helped me understand how to solve stuff. It also helped me relax because it was a break from school work but I still learned stuff,” freshmen Isabelle Raade said. “One was about finding out what was in their mystery boxes and how to test a hypothesis and how to successfully share your findings. Another one was about how we’re going to get through this and to keep doing what you love and it will help.”

The first assignment was a tour of a pharmaceutical lab. 

“The labs were a fun new experience. It was a thing we haven’t tried before and it was very enjoyable,” freshmen Josiah Frantzikinakis said. “The lab was about how advanced our society is compared to that of the past. It also said things about how we are improving faster than ever.”

The second assignment was about the Louvre Museum in France.

“I learned about the idea on Twitter and did some research on things that interested me and things that I felt my students had not experienced before,” Smith said. “ I think the trips brought enough variety that would appeal to most of my students.”

The third one was a doodle lesson with a world renowned children’s author named Mo Willems.

“I really liked the assignment because it was a break from math but I still got to learn. I would love to do this again if she gave us the chance because it was fun and I still learned a lot,” Raade said. “If she let us do it again I would want to do an aquarium type thing so that we could see that life is still going on even though we’re in quarantine.”

The field trips offered students a way to learn in a unique way.

“I learned that our society is full of really smart people,” Frantzikinakis said. “I liked this assignment because it was a break from the boring monotony of eLearning. I certainly want to do this again because there are a lot of fun things and places to see even if it is on a computer screen.”