Glacier National Park virtual field trips hope to inspire connection with nature

Glacier National Park Lead Education Technician Lindsay Brandt is animated on screen. Using exaggerated movements in front of many colorful, interesting photos she creates what feels like watching a live children’s television show for the park’s distance learning program.

On a quiet January morning, Brandt appears before a green screen showing off the park virtually to a classroom at Hot Spring Elementary, but the program also reaches students as far away as New Jersey. 

Brandt said the park’s distance learning program might not only inspire someone to come visit the park one day, but also to seek out nature wherever they are located. 

For it to not feel like a lecture, Brandt said the park service has honed in on how to make the virtual experience as interactive as possible.

“We kind of imagine that we’re going on a hike, which works really well for younger kids, but bringing in different discussions and ways of engaging them — talking with your partner or raising a hand (to answer questions),” Brandt said. 

From climbing over logs in Glacier’s dense forests to trudging up a mountain, Brandt tells her students to prepare for different parts of the hike much like she would in real life. Immersing the class in the habitats of the park might make them wonder what kinds of animals live there, a question that she posed to the students multiple times during the field trip. 

It’s one of the many ways rangers keep students engaged. 

Though it seems like the program that would have been born during the pandemic, Glacier Parks staff started trying to figure out how to host virtual field trips in 2016. 

In 2021, they hosted a trip with a class from every state.