Fridaygram: Connected Classrooms, migrating pronghorns, new Helpouts

NOV 08, 2013
Author PhotoBy +Scott Knaster, Google Developers Blog Editor

When you’re a kid in school, there’s nothing like a field trip to get you out into the world to learn something new. Now, thanks to the web, there is something like a field trip: Connected Classrooms on Google+. This new program lets kids from everywhere make virtual trips to museums, zoos, factories, and other cool places.



Connected Classrooms features great tour guide partners like Seattle Aquarium, Earthecho Expeditions, and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, and we expect the list to grow. If you’re a teacher and you want to find out more, you can join the Connected Classrooms community. And if you have a destination to offer and you want to be considered as a tour guide, you can fill out this form.

Speaking of getting out into the world, each year the pronghorn population of Wyoming migrates 150 km between their summer and winter homes. Along this route the pronghorns face their greatest foe: traffic on U.S. Highway 191, which they must cross. To aid the pronghorn migration, last year the Wyoming Department of Transportation built a system of fences, overpasses, and underpasses for safe crossing. At first the pronghorns weren’t sure what to make of the crossings, but after several hours they began to cross. This time, in the second year of the crossings, the pronghorns knew just what to do and crossed without hesitation. The animals (including the human ones) seem to have adapted nicely.

Finally, take some time this weekend to check out Helpouts by Google, a new way to get help on all sorts of issues via Google+ Hangouts. There are Helpouts for cooking, fitness and nutrition, home and garden, and a bunch of other topics. You can get help solving a problem, or learn a new skill. Maybe you can even offer other developers some coding help in the Computers and Electronics category.


Kids gotta field trip, pronghorns gotta migrate, Fridaygram gotta publish. Each week we take a break from our usual developer fare to bring you fun and nerdy stuff to kick off your weekend. Thanks for being here, and please be careful crossing the highway.