As the stay at home order pushes on, FLOC is here to make sure you don’t go stir crazy inside! Next time you find yourself sitting around wondering what to do, check out this list of great online activities for all ages.
Virtual Museums
Take a virtual field trip! More than 2,500 museums around the world have made their collections accessible online through Google Arts and Culture; you can also use Google to access virtual tours of national parks in the U.S.
The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) offers online learning materials for science fans of all ages, covering a range of topics, including archaeology, paleontology, astronomy, and marine biology. AMNH courses on Khan Academy delve into subjects such as human evolution, earthquakes and volcanoes, the universe, and, of course, dinosaurs. You can also peek behind the scenes on the museum’s YouTube channel, or take a tour of the universe in videos created for the Hayden Planetarium.
The British Museum of Natural History lets you travel through time with this interactive timeline of the world.
The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s Air and Space Anywhere webpage provides virtual tours of the museum and educational podcasts, games, and activities about aircraft and spacecraft.
All online programs and digital content at the Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum are now available for free.
Meditation/Yoga
What could be more soothing than watching jellyfish drifting serenely through the water? In “MeditOcean,” the Monterey Bay Aquarium hosts a soothing 11-minute guided meditation video, featuring the undulating and graceful ballet of several aquarium jellyfish.
Take free online yoga classes on YouTube!
Experience virtual labyrinth/meditation (requires flash player)
Live Video Feeds to Watch
There are 10 live webcams at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, where you can peek at sharks, sea otters, penguins and more. The San Diego Zoo has 11 animal webcams, Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute has four animal webcams, and there are six webcams at the Houston Zoo.
And if you’re feeling really adventurous, you can visit the surface of Mars in a spectacular high-resolution, 360-degree photo tour, created from images captured by the Curiosity rover.
Brain Games
Stimulate your mind with these fun brain games! (requires flash player)
Other Educational Resources
With impressive cutaway illustrations that show how things function, and mindblowing photography of the world’s most inspiring spectacles, How It Works represents the pinnacle of engaging, factual fun for a mainstream audience keen to keep up with the latest tech and the most impressive phenomena on the planet and beyond.
If you know of more resources that you or your family have been using to keep busy, we would love to hear about them! You can email them to mroberts@floc.org
