This poster presentation describes a virtual field trip taken by Mendoza Elementary School, Las Vegas, Nevada classes this summer. The authors, who are DataStreme Learning Implementation Team members, drove from Las Vegas to Seattle for the annual DataStreme Summer Workshop. During the trip and in Seattle, the authors communicated through the internet with classrooms in Las Vegas. Weather information, pictures and pertinent information about Seattle or the en-route area were sent to the classes each day. The students then compared the weather in Las Vegas with the weather from the communication. Fourth grade students were studying about volcanoes and were excited to hear about, and see pictures of, Mt. Shasta, Mt. Lassen, Mt. St. Helen and Mt. Rainier during the virtual field trip. Classes were able to track the route taken on a map during the virtual field trip.

The authors are from Las Vegas, Nevada, with a unique situation of having schools in session year round. One author is a computing specialist working at an elementary school (John F. Mendoza) that is on a year round schedule. Four-fifths of the students are in the building in any given week. There are 1100 students in Mendoza. Four teachers from this school have gone through the DataStreme Atmosphere course. The virtual field trip is a way to implement the concepts learned by the teachers in the DataStreme course. All classrooms are connected to the Internet and all teachers have access to district wide email and a school specific electronic conference. We have many students who have not been outside of the Las Vegas Valley to see different climates and areas of our country.

Since Mendoza is a year-round school, the authors have been communicating with classes for three years with virtual field trips during the summer. The poster presentation will include pointers to others who would like to make virtual field trips with their classrooms. Included will be tips on editing pictures for fast downloading, different internet connections available for use, and success and pitfalls of planning virtual field trips.