Digital Frog

WOW! 

     This is the best way for me to describe Digital Frog software The Digital Field Trip Series DVD disc.  The Digital Field Trip Series has three award-winning programs on one disc.  Explore a Wetland without having to wear rubber boots. Visit a desert without the stifling heat (unless you live in one, like us). Travel down to Central America and marvel at the diversity of a Rainforest.  All of this can be done from your home computer.

     We have had this DVD for about a month now. We have used it multiple times and we have only scratched the surface on the information contained on it.  In a nutshell, there are three separate ecosystems to “visit”.  For the Wetlands, you will visit Algonquin Park, Ontario, Canada. The Rainforest is located at the Blue Creek Rainforest Reserve in Belize, Central America.  The Desert Field Trip explores the deserts from Sonora to the sand dunes of Death Valley.

   

      In order not to write a book on this review, I will attempt to describe the depth of information at Post one of the Rainforest field trip.

     The activity starts out with a bit of geography as you have to find and click on Central America, Belize and finally the Blue Creek Rainforest Reserve.

     The first thing you see at Post one is a Beautiful Rainforest scene. You can zoom in and out, click and drag to look left, right, up and down. Then click on “Learn about Tropical Rainforests”. This takes you to a page that tells about what  a Tropical Rainforest is. From this page you can click on “Experience the Forest” There you will find a narrated slide show, helping you through sight and sound to experience what it would be like to walk through a rainforest. After you experience the rainforest, you can then learn about “Tropical Rainforest Types”.

     Back at Post One, click on the blue word Jaguar. There you can scroll through 5 pictures of jaguars, and watch a short video clip on jaguars. You can read about where the word jaguar comes from. How big a jaguar is. Then discover the habitat and behavior of a jaguar. Learn the life cycle and food sources along with the range for a jaguar.

     Each post is this detailed or more.  There are 28 posts in the Rainforest field trip.

General Features on All Field Trips

Interactive activities

Definitions galore

All words defined

Spoken pronunciations of scientific and technical terms (in addition to definitions)

Student Study Guides

Teacher Guides

Outline graphics (to print and color)

Technical Information

Hybrid Disc (works on both Windows and Mac)

Minimum System Requirements

Windows

Pentium II with Windows 2000, XP or Vista. 32 MB of RAM (64 MB recommended QuickTime 7

Macintosh

G3 300 with OSX 10.3.9 or later, 30 MB of available RAM. QuickTime 7

Price: Digital Field Trip Series

$125 for Home License

Age Range: Kindergarten on up through High School

Our Opinion

     My kids loved this program. They spent hours looking and reading and playing the games.  It was simple enough my 7  and 8 year olds could use and understand it and complex enough my 13 year old was kept enthralled.  Sarah (13) played again and again the games that required her to build her own habitats. Her favorites were building a tree in the Rainforest and building a habitat in the desert. These programs are so detailed and involved that kids can use them over and over and find new and interesting information. 

     One word of warning that we have is: this Series comes from an evolutionary standpoint. For our family who believes in a literal 6-day, young earth creation, this stood out.  This was not a deal breaker for the Series as my kids take great delight in finding evolutionary references and refuting them through the information that they have learned in their science programs.

    I would highly recommend this program. As mentioned above the only caution I would give is about the evolutionary slant.  For more extensive information and samples visit Digital Frog.

To find out what my crew mates thought of Digital Frog  click here.

As an Independent contractor for The Old Schoolhouse and member of TOS Homeschool Crew I received  The Digital Field Trip Series  from Digital Frog for free in exchange for my honest review of their product.