Digital Frog International

Would you like to take your children on a field trip to a dessert, wetland, or rainforest, but live too far away? With the Digital Field Trip Series from Digital Frog International, you can explore all three of these ecosystems right from your own home.

Please read below the descriptions of each ecosystem's field trip from Digital Frog International.

When you take the digital field trip to The Wetlands, you will...

learn about wetland ecology without getting your feet wet at the wetland at Cloud Lake in Algonquin Park, Ontario, Canada. Learn about bog formation, food webs, and photosynthesis.

Please notice in the above picture the blue words: "a dragonfly" and "a wolf." The children can click on those words and a they will be able to see the animal and learn more about them. This digital field trip experience is very interactive. Whenever you see blue words within the text this means the words can be clicked on to learn more.

When you take the digital field trip to the desert you will explore...

From the towering saguaro cacti of Sonoran to the sand dunes of Death Valley, explore the world's deserts while learning about climate, geology, homeostasis, and adaptations.

On your last digital field trip, you will explore The Rainforest and...

Climb into the canopy without leaving the ground as we explore the world's rainforests, starting at the Blue Creek Rainforest Reserve in Belize, Central America. Learn about interdependencies, botany, and biodiversity.

Our family has enjoyed exploring with this Digital Field Trip experience. My children are 5, 7, and 9-years-old. They have needed my help in navigating through the field trips, and in some of the reading. For older children, who are confident readers, they could easily explore independently. My children especially liked how you can use the mouse and click and drag on the images to look all around (get more of a panoramic view of the area). You can also hit the shift key to zoom in to see an image up close, and the control key to zoom out.

This is a secular product, meaning the makers of this digital field trip experience present things from the perspective of evolution. We are a Creationist family, but using products like this does not bother us because we look at it as an opportunity to defend our beliefs and teach our children why we believe what we believe. But, I do know many families who would want to know this information upfront and that is why I'm sharing it in my review. Also, you must be prepared to have discussions with your children about things like mating calls, and animal reproduction. If you are going to be studying science with your children, these topics are natural and are going to come up.

I believe this product is really neat, but there are a couple of things I dislike. If you can see the image from the desert, you can see the little screen with the cacti is in fact small. It actually measures 3 1/2 inches by 2 1/2 inches on my laptop computer screen. I would have preferred this screen to be larger especially since this is something four people were gathered around together at the computer screen trying to look at. The second negative thing is the price (see below). Personally, our family could never swing this price, even if I chose to use it as the foundation of our Science curriculum.

This Digital Field Trips Series includes three field trips on one disc that can be ran on your computer or downloaded. The Home License is $125.00, and also includes workbook materials for both the teacher and student.

To read what other TOS Crew members have to say about this product, please click over to theCrew's blog.

*I received this product free of charge for review purposes.*