Live Nature Webcams - Lambs, Eaglets, Piglets, and Calves, Oh My!

Image copyright: Richard Byrne

Last night while I was working on a list of alternatives to YouTube I found myself distracted by the live nature webcam streams hosted on Explore.org. Explore.org has hosted live webcam streams for many years with the number of streams growing every year. This is a great time of year to look at those streams as many baby animals are born in the spring.

On Explore.org you will find live streams of an eagle's nest with eaglets in it, a sheep barn, a pig pasture, and a bison watering hole. Those are just three of the dozens of interesting streams you can watch on Explore.org. In fact, there is an entire section dedicated to just showing baby animals.



In addition to live webcams you can use Explore.org find documentaries about animals.

Applications for Education
Watching a webcam of a nest or watering hole could get a little boring after a few minutes. The way that I recommend using Explore.org's webcam streams is to have students pick an animal or animals that they want to watch grow over the course of a few weeks. Have them watch for a few minutes a day and record observations in an online or physical journal. The Google Science Journal app could be a good option for writing those observations.

Take a Look at This Year's Explore.org Wildlife Cams

Explore.org offers a fantastic collection of live nature webcam feeds. In the gallery of live webcams you will find video feeds featuring owls in their nests, ospreys in their nests, and bald eagles in nests, and video feeds featuring puffins. Spring is almost here in the northern hemisphere and the bird videos feeds are the best they will be all year because birds will soon be hatching in those nests seen the webcams.


Applications for Education
Birds aren't the only animals featured in the Explore webcams, they just stand out right now because the rest of the year the nests will be empty. Your students can certainly explore all of the other webcams on Explore that feature polar bears, tigers, goats, and many other mammals. All of the webcam feeds have a little pop-up menus that contain more information about the animals featured in the feeds. All videos can be streamed via YouTube or the Explore website. I kind of like just having the owl webcam on as soothing background noise, students might like that too.

Live Nature Webcams In Google Earth

When the new version of Google Earth was released in April, it signaled the beginning of more things to come for Google Earth on Chromebooks. Since then Google has steadily added new features to Google Earth for Chromebook users. The latest update brings a new Voyage that features live nature webcams from Explore.org.

 The Explore.org Voyage features webcams from Katmai National Park. The Voyage includes five live webcam feeds including one underwater webcam which captures images of salmon and bears fishing for salmon.

Watch my video below to learn more about the browser-based version of Google Earth.


Applications for Education
Depending upon the time or year, the new Explore.org Voyage could provide a nice way for students to see brown bears in their natural element. More importantly, it's a demonstration of what you and your students could create by inserting live webcam feeds into your own Google Earth tours.

Live Video of Owls, Ospreys, and More

Explore.org offers the largest collection of live nature webcams on the web. In the gallery of live webcams you will find video feeds featuring owls in their nests, ospreys in their nests, and bald eagles in nests, and video feeds featuring puffins. As it is spring in the northern hemisphere, the bird videos feeds are the best they will be all year because birds will soon be hatching in those nests seen the webcams. For the last ten minutes I've been listening to and watching the nest of this Great Gray Owl in Montana.


Applications for Education
Birds aren't the only animals featured in the Explore webcams, they just stand out right now because the rest of the year the nests will be empty. Your students can certainly explore all of the other webcams on Explore that feature polar bears, tigers, goats, and many other mammals. All of the webcam feeds have a little pop-up menus that contain more information about the animals featured in the feeds. All videos can be streamed via YouTube or the Explore website. I kind of like just having the owl webcam on as soothing background noise, students might like that too.

Explore.org does have a dedicated education section that offers free lesson plans based on the videos available to stream and or download.

Critter Cams Provide Students With an Opportunity to See Wildlife Live

It has been a long winter here in Maine, but soon we will start to hear spring peepers in the evening. That sound is a sure sign that other animals are coming out of hibernation and new animals are being born. If you would like your students to see some baby animals in action, take a look at the Wildlife Center of Virginia's Critter Cams. Critter Cams offers live look-ins at black bear yearlings, horned owls, and a bald eagle.

Another opportunity to view live webcams of animals is found through the National Zoo app for Windows 8. The National Zoo app features live webcam feeds of panda bears, lions and their cubs, tigers, cheetahs, and fish. Because these are live webcams sometimes you'll see the animals and sometimes you won't. If the webcam feed isn't showing the animals when you're viewing it you can switch to the gallery of still imagery.

Explore.org and Wild Earth offer live webcam feeds featuring animals in nature. Both of those resources are included in 7 Sites for Helping Students Learn About Wildlife.

Explore and Watch Polar Bears on Explore.org

It is frigid here in Maine (6F when I took my dog out last night) which might be why I found myself watching a bunch of short videos about Polar Bears last night on Explore.org. I've written about Explore.org and their lesson plans before so I won't rehash that post. I just want to point out that they continue to add great video footage like the Polar Bear footage that you can watch here. I've embedded one of the videos below.



Applications for Education
Polar Bears International has some lesson plans for teaching about climate change, ecotourism, and conservation. You will also find links to a slideshow on Polar Bears and nice PDF about Polar Bears that contains an educational game.

Snag Learning Film of the Week - The Kartal

This week's Snag Learning Film of the Week is The Kartal. The Kartal, produced by Explore.org, is a short video featuring the traditional Indian instrument of the same name. The kartal (or khartal) is a small instrument created from two blocks of wood with small metal jingles attached and played with a clapping motion. Watch the video below and learn more about it here.

Watch more free documentaries

To learn more about traditional Indian music watch Explore.org's video India's Song.

Explore.org Adds Video-Based Lesson Plans

Explore.org produces and hosts high-quality documentary films and photographs. The films and images focus on exploring the world and the work of non-profit organizations around the world. The films and images are organized by location and by charitable and or environmental cause. Explore.org is funded in part by the Annenburg Foundation.

Recently, Explore.org added a lesson plan section for teachers. In total there are ten lesson plans for K-12 students. Not all lesson plans are appropriate for all grades and the lesson plans are labeled accordingly. All of the lesson plans are based upon video created by Explore.

The video embedded below is an example of the type of material you will find in Explore's video collection.


Applications for Education
Explore.org is a good video resource that could be used in a global studies course or world geography course. In addition to being labeled according to grade level, the lesson plans are labeled by the themes they address. For example, there are lesson plans to address the themes of culture, environment, and animals.

Here are some related resources that may be of interest to you:
30+ Alternatives to YouTube
Debate Graph - Diagrams of Global Debates
101 Ways to Teach Geography