Landstown High School is the only school in the United States partnering with WildEarth to bring an engaging, live, interactive broadcast stream to students.

Feb. 22, Landstown High School and WildEarth collaborated to bring its first live, interactive stream to biology students. Students were presented with a real-time video stream with WildEarth live presenters, Jamie Paterson and James Hendry, from South Africa as they were taken on a safari through part of the Greater Kruger National Park in South Africa.

Throughout the virtual trip, teachers and students submitted student-generated questions via Twitter to Wild Earth “Final Control.” The questions were passed on to the presenters, who then answered the questions live as students watched and actively participated. Throughout the event, Landstown Instructional Technology Specialists kept in touch with WildEarth personnel on a back channel via Skype.

Prior to the live presentation, students were provided with background information in regards to curriculum-aligned themes and topics, which were communicated to the partners in South Africa. On their end, WildEarth personnel concentrated their sightings on these themes and focused their presentations around our curricular goals.

“As more digital resources become available to our students and schools, we find ourselves exposed to new and exciting opportunities to create a more vibrant learning environment,” said Erik Moore, Instructional Technology Specialist, who coordinated the partnership. “We have more ability to bring relevance into daily teaching and learning through connected learning experiences. In that spirit, we have reached out to a cutting edge enterprise in South Africa to bring live presentations by local experts to our students,”

With the successful launch of the program this morning, more drives with the SafariLive team are in the works and being scheduled to coordinate with the curriculum and pacing guides of several other classes at Landstown High School.