Friday, Nov. 23, 2007 | 7:15 a.m.
How do the great outdoors, museums and historical documentaries compete for a child's time with video games, picture phones and Internet social sites?
One approach that has proved successful in schools is the electronic field trip.
Begun in 1996 at Indiana's Ball State University, the program has grown beyond measure. Last month, for example, the university estimated "millions of children" around the world watched its Webcast titled "Tails From the Tetons."
Featuring appropriately aged schoolchildren on location, the interactive Webcast focused on how wildlife native to the Grand Teton National Park adapts to the forest's environment. Included was an interactive video game in which students hundreds and thousands of miles away take on the role of a park ranger who encounters antelope, elk, bears and other woodland animals.
The National Park Foundation has long been a sponsor of the program, and other Webcasts in the series include field trips to Grand Canyon, Carlsbad Caverns and Hawaii Volcanoes national parks.
Other sponsors contributing support for electronic field trips to their facilities include the National Baseball Hall of Fame, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the National Museum of the American Indian and Space Center Houston.
There are also historical documentaries, including one called "The Little Rock Nine," which tells the dramatic story of the integration of Central High School in Little Rock, Ark., in 1957.
Because of the sponsorships, schools can tune in for free at www.bsu.edu/eft.
We believe Ball State's program, and similar programs from other educational sources, offer hope to parents at home worried about the content of Internet sites, text messages and other electronic media that so preoccupy their children.
Children are fascinated by the schools' programming and there is no reason why similar programming wouldn't work at home. And if those programs could inspire a family outing to a state or national park, a museum or a historical site - getting kids outdoors - so much the better.
We guarantee that learning about the Grand Tetons is better for children than playing "Grand Theft Auto" on a video game box.
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