Whether you are an experienced online student or new to online education, the Department of Student Engagement has resources to help you expand your online experience!

Below you will find a series of interactive links for your exploration and discovery in the virtual world!

*These lists will continue to be updated*

Have additional resources we should add to this list? Email them to stulife@highlands.edu

Activities

• Virtual Cooking – Get daily cooking lessons from the head chef and food mastermind at the Gucci Osteria restaurant in Los Angeles, CA. Chef Massimo Bottura wants to help with a nightly, free cooking series he’s launched via his own personal Instagram page.
• Art classes – Join the Kennedy Center’s artist-in-residence Mo Willems every day at 1pm for his Lunch Doodles art lessons!
• Concerts – Check out this List of virtual concerts  Or enjoy this list of virtual music events from the StayAtHomeFest

• Broadway Plays – Watch some of the top Broadway Plays from the comfort of your own couch!
• Towel Animal Lessons – Learn to make towel animals! This is a cool event we wish we could’ve hosted on campus! It’s DIY so grab a towel to get started!
• Free Coloring Books –  How awesome is that?! Print off a free printable coloring page from the “Color Our Collections” campaign with coloring sheets from over 100 museums and libraries from around the world or choose from 1,500+ coloring pages with Just Color.
• Poetry – Do you love a good poem? Poets.org is releasing a Poem-a-Day!

Amusement Parks

• Walt Disney World – Set aside some time, because there’s plenty to see here. Virtual tours you can take include Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, and Epcot, just to name a few. There are also unofficial YouTube videos that feel just like you’re on famous rides at Disney World and Disneyland.
  • Ride through Space Mountain located in Tomorrowland at Magic Kingdom.
  • Experience Slinky Dog Dash at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
  • Take a fun boat ride on It’s A Small World in Fantasyland at Magic Kingdom.
  • Stop at Epcot and say “Hi” to Elsa, Olaf, and more on Frozen Ever After.
  • Take a quick jaunt under the sea on The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Undersea Adventure.
  • Make a trip to Neverland and ride on Peter Pan’s Flight.
  • Travel through “a cartoon universe” on Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.
  • While at Magic Kingdom, “Yo ho ho” your way through the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.
  • Go on Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin at Tomorrowland
  • And, duuudeee, you totally have to experience The Seas with Nemo & Friends.
• LEGOLAND Florida Resort:The Great Lego Race and Miniland USA are just two of the attractions you can check out in a virtual tour of the park.
• SeaWorld Orlando:The virtual tour of Seaworld includes a tour of Discovery Cove and the option to”ride” the steel roller coaster Mako.
• Six Flags – Experience a number of point-of-view rides across a number of the Six Flags brand of amusement parks!
  • Six Flags Great Adventure – Experience six different roller coasters from this park in New Jersey.
  • Six Flags Magic Mountain – Awesome! 19 rides experienced during this 33-minute thrill from the Los Angeles park.
  • Six Flags Over Texas – Talk about everything being big in Texas! Check out all 48 rides in this Dallas-area park with this video playlist!
  • Six Flags New England – Hop on three of the top rides at this park just outside Boston – the Mind Eraser, the Joker, and Bizzaro!

Zoos and Aquariums

• The Cincinnati Zoo:Check in around 3 p.m., because that’s the time the Zoo holds a daily Home Safari on its Facebook Live Feed.
• Atlanta Zoo:The Georgia zoo keeps a “Panda Cam” livestream on its website.
• Georgia Aquarium:Sea-dwellers like African penguins and Beluga Whales are the stars of this aquarium’s live cam.
• Houston Zoo:There are plenty of different animals you can check in on with this zoo’s live cam, but we highly recommend watching the playful elephants.
• The Shedd Aquarium:This Chicago aquarium shares some pretty adorable behind-the-scenes footage of their residents on Facebook.
• San Diego Zoo:With what may be the most live cam options, this zoo lets you switch between koalas, polar bears, and tigers in one sitting.
• Monterey Bay Aquarium:It can be Shark Week every week thanks to live online footage of Monterey Bay’s Habitat exhibit.
• National Aquarium:Walk through tropical waters to the icy tundra in this floor-by-floor tour of the famous, Baltimore-based aquarium.

Museums

• The Louvre: You don’t have to book a ticket to Paris to check out some of the famous pieces in the world’s largest art museum. The Louvre has free online tours of three famous exhibits, including Egyptian Antiquities.
• Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum: The works of Pablo Picasso, Piet Mondrian, Jeff Koons, and Franz Marc are just some of the 625 artists whose work are a part of the Guggenheim’s Collection Online.
• Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History: Move at your own pace through the 360-degree room-by-room tour of every exhibit in the museum.
• Van Gogh Museum: You can get up close and personal with the impressionist painter’s most famous work thanks to Google Arts & Culture.
• Getty Museum: Los Angeles’s premiere gallery has two virtual tours, including “Eat, Drink, and Be Merry,” which is a closer look at food in the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
• The Vatican Museum: The Sistine Chapel, St. Peter’s Basilica, and Raphael’s Room, are just some of the sites you can see on the Vatican’s virtual tour.
• Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum: Madrid’s must-see art museum has the works of some of the continent’s most celebrated artists like Rembrandt and Dali available online.
• Georgia O’Keeffe Museum: Six virtual exhibits are available online from this museum named for the “Mother of American modernism.”
• National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City: Dive into the pre-Hispanic history of Mexico with 23 exhibit rooms full of Mayan artifacts.
• British Museum, London: The Rosetta Stone and Egyptian mummies are just a couple of things that you’re able to see on a virtual tour of the museum.
• NASA: Both Virginia’s Langley Research Center and Ohio’s Glenn Research Center offer online tours for free. Also, you can try some “augmented reality experiences” via The Space Center Houston’s app.
• National Women’s History Museum: Have a late International Women’s Day celebration with online exhibits and oral histories from the Virginia museum.
• Metropolitan Museum of Art: Though the Met Gala was cancelled this year, you can still have a peak at the The Costume Institute Conversation Lab, which is one of the institution’s 26 online exhibits.
• High Museum of Art, Atlanta: This museum’s popular online exhibits include “Civil Rights Photography” — photos that capture moments of social protest like the Freedom Rides and Rosa Park’s arrest.
• Detroit Institute of Arts: Mexican art icon Frida Kahlo is the focal point of two of the four available online exhibits.
• Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam: The Golden Age of Dutch art is highlighted in this museum which includes the work of Vermeer and Rembrandt.
• National Museum of the United States Air Force: You can’t take a ride in Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidential airplane, but you can check it out, in addition to other military weapons and aircraft, online in the Air Force’s official museum.
• MoMA (The Museum of Modern Art): New York’s extensive collection is available for view online.
• Museum of Fine Arts, Boston: The 16 virtual exhibits include a special section on 21st Century Designer Fashion.
• Museums of Dubai: Explore several museums located in the city of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

National Parks Tours (Using Google Earth)

• Acadia National Park
• Arches National Park
• Badlands National Park
• Big Bend National Park
• Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park
• Bruce Canyon National Park
• Canyonlands National Park
• Channel Islands National Park
• Cuyahoga Valley National Park
• Death Valley National Park
• Denali National Park
• Dry Tortugas National Park
• Everglades National Park
• Glacier National Park
• Grand Canyon National Park
• Grand Teton National Park
• Great Smoky Mountain National Park
• Guadalupe Mountains National Park
• Joshua Tree National Park
• Mesa Verde National Park
• Mount Rainier National Park
• Olympic National Park
• Redwood National and State Parks
• Rocky Mountain National Park
• Sequoia National Park
• Shenandoah National Park
• Virgin Islands National Park
• Wind Cave National Park
• Yellowstone National Park
• Yosemite National Park
• Zion National Park

Sight Seeing

• Check out this tour of Ellis Island!
• Take a tour of England thanks to virtual reality!
• Have you ever visited the Great Wall of China?
• Try to maintain social distancing while walking through Pompeii…
• Honestly, this next one is outta this world! This is a real look at Mars!!!