Visual learners require engaging images, but ALL learners benefit tremendously from engaging images and videos.  With the high quality photos and videos that are readily available on the internet, these are the best of times for learners everywhere.  The same holds true for educators intent on engaging learners.  The resource I’m highlighting today is an exceptional example of what is available.

ARKive Education describes itself as “…a free multi-media resource for teachers and educators.”  It is an extensive and well organized resource of extremely high quality.  Lesson modules, organized by targeted age level from 5 to 16+, cover a wide range of topics in science and social studies.

Each lesson module consists of an interactive PowerPoint file that contains supporting photos and video footage.  The modules download as zipped files which must be properly unzipped and saved to your computer in order to work properly.  In fact, I found the modules I sampled to function very slowly the first time through.  It was smooth sailing after that.

In addition to the lesson modules, Arkive Education offers a collection of engaging online games.  Have a look at the attractive welcome screen.  You’ll notice that there isn’t any advertising.

It is worth noting that Arkive Education is the “child” of ARKive, a website that houses literally thousands of  wildlife images and videos, with a special focus on threatened species.  Images have been carefully catalogued for easy searching. A great deal of additional information is also available about each species.  All movie clips and images on the ARKive website are free to download and use for internal educational purposes.