Posted by Dina Kachintseva, Classroom Software Engineer and Felix Wang, User Experience Designer


(Cross-posted on the Google for Education Blog.)

As any teacher would tell you, the classroom isn’t the only place where learning happens — it’s just the tip of the iceberg. From parents who help students with homework, to extracurriculars, field trips and more, there are so many ways students can learn beyond the walls of the classroom. This is why today we’re announcing new features to help teachers inspire learning for students, regardless of place or time.
Parents and guardians stay informed with Google Classroom email summaries Parent participation has a major impact on student learning. Today, we’re launching a new feature in Google Classroom that will automatically share summaries of student work with parents. Once invited by a teacher, parents and guardians can receive automated daily or weekly email summaries of student work and class announcements, making it easier to stay up-to-date on what’s happening in the classroom.

“I enjoy helping my children prepare for assignments that they have coming up – and the earlier I know about them, the better,” says Michelle Barrette, a mother of five Medfield, Massachusetts students and pilot user of the new Classroom feature. “This way I can prevent them from missing deadlines and see if they need help brainstorming topics or solutions.”

Annotations help students color outside the lines — and the classroom When teachers want to help students understand complex math or science concepts, visuals — like drawings on a whiteboard — can help. But how does this work when students and teachers aren’t in the classroom together? Today, we’re announcing the ability to annotate documents in the Google Classroom mobile app.

Using annotations, students can complete assignments, sketch out math problems or even create visuals of creative ideas directly on their devices. This gives students a portable classroom whiteboard on which they can easily draw and sketch. Now, thinking through complex homework challenges from home, school or on the bus is even easier. 

Teachers can use annotations to quickly grade assignments by writing directly on the student’s work, or highlighting the most important passages in a text or novel. Anne Farrahar, an English teacher in the Medfield Public Schools district, explains how her lessons benefitted from her high school students annotating a critique of Shakespeare’s "The Merchant of Venice." “They highlighted all the ideas they thought were convincing arguments in one color, and all the ideas they disagreed with in another color,” says Farrahar. “This gave me the chance to assess students' individual understanding and, based on their responses, gather ideas for future lessons.” 

More Expeditions thousands of miles away or inside the human body Have you ever wondered what it would be like to visit the White House Kitchen Garden or what it would be like to travel inside the human body? Today we’re announcing new Expeditions that bring students far beyond the usual places they can travel. With these adventures, like a visit to Bhutan or an exploration of the human vascular systems, teachers are able to deeply immerse students in lessons, creating vivid and memorable learning experiences.

In addition, the Expeditions app is coming soon to iOS. More teachers, including those who use iPads, will be able to share Expeditions with their students by using full-screen mode on the devices in place of a VR viewer. With over 200 Expeditions available, we’re excited for them to experience these virtual field trips on more devices. 

More Google for Education features for busy teachers and curious minds In celebration of the new school year, we’re excited to share more new tools for teachers and students to break down traditional barriers within the classroom: 

• A more organized Classroom. To make Classroom even easier to use, teachers can organize the class stream by adding topics to posts, and teachers and students can filter the stream for specific topics. Plus, users can now preview documents, PDFs, images and videos, all without leaving Classroom. 
• Share your screens wirelessly at school. With the latest Chrome update, Cast for Education is now available to all teachers and students. This free Chrome app carries video and audio across complex school networks and has built-in controls for teachers — no new hardware required. Look out for updates including support for secondary domains coming soon. 
• Google Forms get an upgrade with images. In Forms, teachers can now add images to questions or as multiple choice answers. This is perfect for subjects like math when students need to show their understanding of diagrams and graphs. 
• Inbox by Gmail for the classroom. Inbox by Gmail is rolling out to Google for Education users. Coming soon, email notifications from Classroom will be intelligently grouped in Inbox, making it easy for teachers and students to find important updates and highlights. 

Whether students are at home or in the classroom, teachers can continue to inspire and support their curiosity with Expeditions, Classroom, Apps and Chromebooks. Stay tuned this week on Google+ and Twitter for more details on these exciting new tools. 

Posted by Melissa Horwitz, Marketing Manager, Google for Education


(Cross-posted on the Google for Education Blog.)

Editor's note: Teachers are uniquely inspiring people. It takes a teacher to innovate in the classroom and inspire a love for learning. We had a great time celebrating these everyday heroes at ISTE this week, and we wanted to highlight a few of them below. Check out the #GoogleEdu and #ISTE2016 hashtags to get a recap of what went on in Denver this week.


The teachers at Laguna Beach Unified School District in California and Sun Prairie Area School District in Wisconsin wanted to give their traditional classroom a reboot. By upending the typical classroom layout that confines students to desks and teachers to the front of the room, they increased student engagement, introducing technology, hands-on learning and group activities.

Laguna Beach designs learning spaces to enhance engagement through movement 

“The classroom is the most neglected element in education right now,” says Mike Morrison, chief technology officer at Laguna Beach Unified School District. “You’ll find rooms with dark projectors, the lights out and the blinds drawn. How could these dark spaces inspire learning?” At Laguna Beach, Morrison and 15 teachers plunged into research on the impact that environment has on the senses — and tested technologies, furniture and even colored lighting. The core elements, says Morrison, boiled down to flexible furniture, multiple monitors and audio amplification.

To replace bulky desks that were designed decades ago to be placed in rows, Morrison and his team chose desks and chairs with wheels that can revolve in any direction. This frees up teachers and students to quickly group desks together and direct attention at any part of the classroom — or at each other. There are standing desks as well, giving students the option to have their legs engaged — a boon for students dealing with attention-deficit disorders, Morrison says.

More monitors and whiteboards provide more space for students to work as teams, instead of just watching the teacher up front. “The walls can then become anything we want them to be,” says Morrison — a place for a test review, a team project or solving a math problem as a class.

Morrison and his team also changed the audio and lighting to help set the mood for different types of learning and make it easier for teachers to be heard. Teachers wear lanyard microphones connected to each classroom’s speaker system. “A teacher who spends the day shouting to be heard is stressed, and so is the class,” Morrison says. Teachers use lighting to change wall colors depending on the activity — yellow to encourage quiet reading time, blue for creativity and brainstorming.

About 40 classrooms have been reconfigured to date, with 20 more to come this summer — and the change is palpable, Morrison says. “Teachers are walking around more, and they’re in touch with what students are doing,” Morrison says. “The atmosphere in classrooms is also much calmer.”

Laguna Beach Unified School district put together this fun video — a takeoff on TV’s “The Office” — showing off the classroom improvements.

Classrooms become technology incubators for Sun Prairie Area students 

At Sun Prairie Area School District, teachers are inspiring students to be entrepreneurial and engage with technology. They found that by creating dedicated spaces without any of the usual trappings of a classroom, they could motivate students to break out of their comfort zones and think more outside the box.

One of these learning spaces, “Fab Lab,” was created by Stephanie Breunig, a media specialist for the district’s Cardinal Heights Upper Middle School. Students can use the Fab Lab for school or personal projects. The lab has Legos, digital and GoPro cameras, art supplies, circuit boards and software such as GarageBand, recording software for music and Final Cut Pro, a video editing software. In the Fab Lab, students work with teachers to create their own videos or music mashups and internet memes. They've even started learning 3D printing and robotics.

Student working on a project in the Fab Lab

At Sun Prairie Area, teachers are also evolving learning spaces inside the classroom. With Google Maps, students take virtual tours of the world in their geography lessons, learning details about other cultures that they couldn’t find on a regular map. “Students use Google Maps to explore and take interactive tours of other countries,” says Tim Mortensen, 6th and 7th grade social studies teacher at Patrick Marsh Middle School. “When we learned about the pyramids, they could actually see them on the map and they started asking questions about what they’re made of. Some students even explored the surrounding area, wanting to know more about the hotels and restaurants in Egypt and asking questions like why the McDonalds there has different items on the menu.”

“Literacy no longer means just reading and writing words on a page. Technology has created a new definition of literacy that includes digital,” says Curt Mould, director of innovation, assessment and continuous improvement at Sun Prairie Area School District. To teach with technology, teachers are creating learning spaces defined by interactive learning and experimentation.

Laguna Beach and Sun Prairie Area School Districts have discovered just a few of the ways that disrupting the traditional classroom environment can help engage students. From exploring the world with online activities, to simply taking the classroom outside for a lesson, there are an infinite number of ways that teachers all over are creating new learning spaces to inspire students. Is your school district trying to reinvent the rooms where learning happens? Tell us about your plans to inspire curiosity in the classroom environment.

Posted by Max Kirsch, Product Manager, Cast for Education

(Cross-posted on the Google for Education Blog.)

Editor's note: This week we announced four new ways to help teachers engage their classes using Google educational tools. This post dives deeper into one of the those announcements: Cast for Education. 

In his 11 years of teaching at Hillcrest Elementary in the Lake Stevens School district in Washington State, Bob Coleman has witnessed how educational technology can help advance collaboration and engagement in the classroom. So when the 4th grade teacher found his students stuck on a common math problem, he gathered the class in front of the classroom projector. Sitting behind his desk — now in front of his students and not among them — Mr. Coleman realized that the biggest screen in the room was only available to the teacher.

In Mr. Coleman’s classroom — and for millions of students around the world — both education and technology are expected to be collaborative. But today, the classroom projector is most often out of reach for students. Educators are eager to overcome this barrier, so much so that wireless screen sharing for schools was one of the top features requested by teachers in 2015.

Teachers, we heard you loud and clear. Yesterday we announced Google Cast for Education, a free Chrome app that allows students and teachers to share their screens wirelessly from anywhere in the classroom. Cast for Education carries video and audio across complex school networks, has built-in controls for teachers, and works seamlessly with Google Classroom. And because the app runs on the teacher’s computer that’s connected to the projector, it doesn’t require new hardware. Teachers run the Cast for Education app, and students share their screens through the Cast feature in Chrome.

Teacher view (click image to see larger)

Student view (click image to see larger)

To gather feedback on the product, we had teachers like Mr. Coleman and his colleague Tony Koumaros pilot Cast for Education in their classrooms. Mr. Koumaros knew his students would be excited to share their work with the rest of the class, but he was surprised to discover that they were eager to share even when they didn’t know all of the answers. “Casting makes it fun to ask for help,” he said. “My students enjoyed working through challenges together.”

Erin Turnbach, a 2nd grade teacher who piloted Cast for Education at Tom’s River Regional School District in New Jersey, found herself “co-teaching with a 2nd grader” during a lesson on animals. When the class got stuck during research time, Ms. Turnbach was able to work one-on-one with a student while another casted to the rest of the class. “We’re always trying to encourage teamwork,” Ms Turnbach says. “The end product is stronger when you collaborate and build off each other’s ideas. With Cast for Education, everyone engages and the students take ownership of their learning.”

“It’s hard to imagine not using it now that we have it”, Mr. Coleman says. “Sharing student screens was a big need for us, and now Cast for Education is our daily classroom tool.”

*Note: Visit g.co/CastForEDU to try Cast for Education today in beta, with full availability for Back to School 2016. Chrome management admins can install the new Cast for Education app for all teachers, and the Google Cast extension for their entire domain.

Posted by Daniel Bray, Program Manager, eLearning, Australian Capital Territory Education Directorate

(Cross-posted on the Google for Education Blog.)

Editor's note: Today’s guest author is Daniel Bray, Program Manager, eLearning, for the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Education Directorate. A former teacher, Bray initiated a districtwide digital program, which brought Chromebooks and Google Apps for Education into all Canberra public schools. The “Learn, Anywhere” program has since been recognised at the federal government level as a finalist for the national eGovernment Excellence awards for Project and Program Management. You can read full the full ACT case study here.


I work for the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Education Directorate, which serves 45,000 students from preschool through year 12 in the 87 schools comprising the Canberra Public School system. In 2013, the Directorate launched a district wide digital transformation program with the goal of empowering students to "Learn, Anywhere.”

Students at Amaroo School, a 'super' school in the Canberra district, that has classes from Kindergarten to Year 12

While we were thrilled at the prospect of helping students learn both inside and outside of the classroom, making this goal a reality came with it’s own unique set of challenges. Our first step was to bring all of Canberra Public Schools into a single, centralised network. We soon realised that our learning management system didn’t scale, and that many schools’ laptops were beyond obsolete. A group of our students, frustrated with computer log-in times, sent our CIO an assignment that recorded log-in times of up to 7 minutes on multiple laptops. That was one of our 'a-ha' moments, and since then, we've taken every effort to use student feedback to inform our overall program strategy.

When we realized that we needed to overhaul the district’s entire technology infrastructure, Chromebooks and Google Apps for Education (including Google Classroom) stood out as a clear choice for us.

Primary students at Amaroo School collaborating on a class project

Chromebooks were affordable and intuitive; Google Apps would let students work from anywhere, on any device; and Google Classroom would let teachers share assignments, track student progress and grade papers — all without printing a single piece of paper.

In 2014, we ran a pilot test with 208 Chromebooks and Google Apps in four primary and secondary schools. During the pilot, the students using Chromebooks and Google Apps experienced super quick logon times and went from 2GB of network storage to enjoying unlimited Google Drive storage. As a Directorate, we couldn’t have been happier with the results: the pilot was a huge success for students, parents and teachers. Most importantly, Google was the choice selected by the schools. Not me. Not the CIO. The schools.

Based on that pilot, in 2015 we decided to roll out Google Apps accounts for all teachers and 32,000 students across the Canberra Public Schools. We also purchased 4,500 Chromebooks (and counting) for schools across the district.

Today, we equip students and teachers with a “Digital Backpack” that comes with Google Classroom and Google Apps, all available in one dashboard. Students get a single login and password for their Google accounts, which stays with them from primary through secondary school.

It’s amazing to watch student learning portfolios grow from year to year. Families can track student development and celebrate achievements, and teachers have a richer, more holistic view of student progress.

By adopting Chromebooks and Google Apps districtwide, we’ve greatly improved the way our students share ideas, give peer feedback and collaborate with each other, in real time. These intuitive and helpful technologies have helped us achieve and exceed our “Learn, Anywhere” vision.


You can read full the full ACT case study here.

Posted by Bram Bout, Director, Google for Education

(Cross-posted on the Google for Education Blog.)

While university students are on their summer holidays, internships or jobs, their professors are already hard at work planning for fall courses. These course maps will be at the center of student learning, research and academic growth. Google was founded on the basis of the work that Larry and Sergey did as computer science students at Stanford, and we understand the critical role that teachers play in fostering and inspiring the innovation we see today and will see in the years to come. That’s why we’re excited to offer Google Cloud Platform Education Grants for computer science.

Starting today, university faculty in the United States who teach courses in computer science or related subjects can apply for free credits for their students to use across the full suite of Google Cloud Platform tools, like App Engine and the Cloud Machine Learning platform. These credits can be used any time during the 2016-17 academic year and give students access to the same tools and infrastructure used by Google engineers.

Students like Duke University undergrad Brittany Wenger are already taking advantage of cloud computing. After watching several women in her family suffer from breast cancer, Brittany used her knowledge of artificial intelligence to create Cloud4Cancer, an artificial neural network built on top of Google App Engine. By analyzing uploaded scans of benign and malignant breast cancer tumors, Cloud4Cancer has learned to distinguish between healthy and unhealthy tissue. It’s providing health care professionals with a powerful diagnostic tool in the fight against cancer.

Google Cloud Platform offers a range of tools and services that are unique among cloud providers. The tool that Brittany used — Google App Engine — lets you simply build and run an application without having to configure custom infrastructure. Our Machine Learning platform allows you to build models for any type of data, at any size, and TensorFlow provides access to an open-source public software library (tinker with that extensive data here). Students will also be able to get their hands on one of Cloud Platform’s most popular new innovations: the Cloud Vision API, which allows you to incorporate Google’s state-of-the-art image recognition capabilities into the most basic web or mobile app.

We look forward to seeing the creative ways that computer science students will use their Google Cloud Platform Education Grants, and will share stories along the way on this blog.

Computer science faculty in the United States can apply here for Education Grants. Students and others interested in Cloud Platform for Higher Education, should complete this form to register and stay up to date with the latest from Cloud Platform. For more information on Cloud Platform and its uses for higher education, visit our Google Cloud Platform for Higher Education site.

Posted by Mo Fong, Director of K-12 Education Outreach

(Cross-posted on the Google for Education Blog.)

Editor's note: This post is part of our series for U.S. Teacher Appreciation Week. Look for more content on our blog and social media throughout the week. Don’t forget to add to the conversation using #ThankATeacher.


When I was five years old, I immigrated to the U.S. from Taiwan. My sister and I were the only Asians in our entire school, and I remember how my kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Marvin, went out of her way to make me feel welcome in the classroom and country. I stayed in touch with her until her passing a few years ago. Our relationship speaks volumes about how influential teachers can be. Later in high school, my math teacher, Mr. Fee, showed me how to apply my math skills in the real world. His practical guidance shaped my career aspirations to study chemical engineering in college and to become a high school math teacher myself.

After moving from Taiwan to the U.S. at age 5, Mo Fong's first experiences with the U.S. School system was formed by her kindergarten teacher Mrs. Marvin, who helped set her up on a path to success. 

All good teachers inspire students to pursue new opportunities and challenge themselves, but science, technology, engineering & math (STEM) teachers and specifically computer science (CS) teachers have to overcome some obstacles that others don’t. Often, there’s not enough access to CS resources in schools, and school officials haven’t adopted a CS curriculum. Only 22% of public school principals say that CS education is a top priority, despite the fact that more than 1.3 million computer and math-based jobs will be created by 2022, according to a joint Google and Gallup study. CS teachers also have to overcome stereotypes that keep many students, especially girls and underrepresented minorities, away from the subject.


In the spirit of Teacher Appreciation Week, I would like to share the stories of three high school CS teachers who are overcoming these obstacles and inspiring students to be passionate about the problems they want to solve in the world.

Diane Terrell - Exposing more students to computer science 

When I think of Diane Johnson Terrell words like strength, empowerment and role model come to mind. Terrell, a high school math and engineering teacher at Oakland Unified School District in California, became a CS teacher via an unconventional path. She was working as a programmer analyst and quickly realized she was one of the only African Americans and females in the industry. One of the main reasons the field isn’t more diverse is because people haven’t been exposed to the field, Terrell says. Now her students understand they can build amazing things with a CS degree, and they can have a lucrative career doing so.


Terrell also is breaking down the idea that CS is only for boys and the affluent. She's introducing a CS program that more than 400 9th graders will take next year, and teaching youth at her church how to code and develop an app for the church together.


“Many students in my community play video games and post on social media, but they don’t understand that a lot of programming and code goes into building them,” Terrell says. “My goal is to get my students to move from being consumers to being builders by creating apps on their phones.”


Another inspiring way Terrell is empowering female students to pursue CS is by connecting them with female executives and doctoral students in the field who mentor them and show them that women can be as successful in the field as men. “After spending time with their mentors at UC Berkeley, girls of color learned they have a phenomenal aptitude to change the world,” Terrell says. “Their confidence exploded and they realized how much of a difference they can make.”

Seth Reichelson - Breaking down the computer science stereotype 

The field of CS shares the unfortunate “geek” stereotype that math and engineering do. But that stereotype doesn’t exist at Lake Brantley High School in Altamonte Springs, Florida. Teacher Seth Reichelson, a White House Champion of Change, has toppled those preconceived notions and made his AP CS class appealing to all students. To make the subject relatable and interesting, he changes his in-class examples to be fun, for example by having students manipulate pixels in a picture instead of doing a bug simulation.


“I won’t acknowledge a stereotype because if you acknowledge it, that’s the same as promoting it,” says Reichelson, who learned this strategy at a National Center for Women & Information Technology workshop. “My students have no idea what the stereotype is.”

The computer science class of 2015 at Lake Brantley High School

Reichelson believes that there should be a diversity requirement that the AP CS student population reflect the diversity of the entire school. He believes a more diverse classroom will lead to a greater diversity of ideas and opinions and thus a smarter, better run workplace. “If you have one type of person working for your company, you’re only going to have one type of solution,” Reichelson says. “You have to have a diverse company to have diverse solutions.”

Leslie Aaronson - Turning the classroom into a startup environment 

After working for Nickelodeon for three years, Leslie Aaronson realized she wanted to teach students communication, collaboration and networking skills in a way that reflects the real world. Today as lead teacher of Foshay Learning Center’s Technology Academy in Los Angeles, California, she’s turned her classroom into a startup environment. She encourages students to take control of their learning and be proactive, instead of waiting for the teacher to provide instructions. “I put learning back into the student’s hands. Students show each other their screens, and when they can’t figure out a solution to a problem, I ask them, ‘What have you tried, and who have you talked to?’ I challenge them to explore all of their resources.”

Aaronson teaches her students to meet with professionals, both to develop the skill of networking and to form strong relationships with people in the industry. She coordinates mentor days and field trips for her students to connect with people at local colleges like USC and UCLA.

To showcase their projects, Aaronson’s students develop a digital portfolio that speaks to their technology skills when applying for college or interviewing for jobs. “Some kids come back to me three years later and say that the portfolio they created in my class got them a job. The most rewarding thing is to know I’m helping people get on their feet and achieve great things in life.”

Leslie with nine of her students who won the NCWIT Aspirations in Computing Award

These are the stories of just a few of the inspirational CS teachers that are educating the data scientists and software developers of tomorrow. Reach out a hand and support teachers like Diane, Seth and Leslie by donating to a classroom in need at DonorsChoose.org, or partnering with a school to introduce a CS program.

Posted by Justine Tiu, Google Classroom User Experience Designer


(Cross-posted on the Google for Education Blog.)


Matthew Agrall teaches fifth grade at South Elementary School in Des Plaines, Illinois. He juggles teaching all core subjects, leading before-school tutoring, managing fifth grade patrol, participating in student council and playing volleyball in his “free time.”

This is why we created Google Classroom—to help busy teachers like Matt spend less time on logistics and more time on teaching, tutoring and student council-ing. Since we launched Classroom two years ago, we’ve added more than 50 updates to make it easier to manage assignments, communicate with students and stay organized.

Today, on National Teacher Appreciation Day, to show our thanks for the millions of hardworking teachers like Matthew, we’re making it even easier to stay organized and save time with Classroom.

Schedule ahead, post later 

Starting today, teachers can plan ahead by scheduling announcements, assignments and questions to post at a later date or a specific time (great for the early birds who want to get a head start on school planning during the summer ;). Just look for the scheduling option when posting new assignments, questions and announcements. You can find scheduled and draft posts in the “Saved posts” section of your class stream, and you’ll get email and mobile notifications when your scheduled posts go live.

We’re also adding new updates to Classroom over the next week—all designed to help teachers save time and stay organized. Look out for easier-to-read email notifications and updates to our iOS and Android apps.

Coming this fall: keeping parents and guardians in the loop 

We know parents and guardians are instrumental to student success at school. And to the school leaders and teachers who’ve told us they need an easy way to keep guardians updated with what’s happening in Classroom—we hear you! Later this year, we’ll launch email notifications for guardians so they can stay involved and help to motivate their students.

Guardians will be able to sign-up to receive daily or weekly email digests of their student’s progress, upcoming work and class announcements. Administrators will be able to invite guardians directly and set domain-wide policies for guardian linking and notifications.

To teachers like Matthew who are fueling the future—we thank you. Here’s hoping you get all the appreciation you deserve this week . . . and for the rest of the school year.

Posted by Michael de la Cruz, Google for Education


(Cross-posted on the Google for Education Blog.)


Editor's note: This post is part of our series for U.S. Teacher Appreciation Week. Look for more content on our blog and social media throughout the week. Don’t forget to add to the conversation using #ThankATeacher.

I’m in awe of Mrs. Zazulak, my daughter’s 5th grade teacher. She is constantly finding new ways to engage students with her inquiry based learning approach. She inspires her student’s creative writing with “Who would win Wednesdays?” and asks them to write any story about what would happen if King Kong faced off against Godzilla. This week is Teacher Appreciation Week in the United States, so we’d like to honor teachers like Mrs. Zazulak and the millions of others who put their talents and passion into educating our children. Below are a few more examples of teachers using creative methods to engage students and teach valuable skills for the future.

Majoring in leadership 

Teachers are dedicated to building the next generation of leaders. Teachers like Lou Ann McKibben at Jackson Preparatory School in Jackson, Mississippi are fostering leadership skills and giving students opportunities to experiment with the kinds of projects and tools they’ll encounter in the workplace. For example, Ms. McKibben, an economics teacher, hosts an annual “Shark Tank” day where students pitch their ideas to local business leaders. She’s giving the students a fun way to guide their own learning, while preparing them to share ideas and drive projects in the workplace.

Ms. McKibben with one of her graduating students

Classroom commerce

In addition to developing crucial skills for the future, teachers are empowering students to dream big. Matt Martin, a chemistry teacher at High Tech High in San Diego, California, gave his students a crash course in entrepreneurship that led them to create the Wicked Soap Company, a student-run ecommerce business. Students are involved in every aspect of the company, from creating the soap to reporting on the business to their classmates. From day one, Mr. Martin has encouraged his students to experiment — the idea for Wicked Soap came from one student’s science project — and to follow their instincts. Mr. Martin’s class uses the revenue from the business to fund field trips, reinvest and organize a scholarship for fellow students. By rallying the class around a complex project, Mr. Martin created an experience that inspired students to try new things, work together and believe in their ability to run a business.

Mr. Martin, chemistry teacher at High Tech High

Encouraging innovation 

Teachers are also redefining traditional notions of the classroom and challenging students to do the same. Stacy Dang, who teaches at Cornwall Terrace Elementary in Pennsylvania, created a virtual classroom that supports inquiry-based learning, a method for prompting students to solve problems themselves. In one instance, Ms. Dang created a shared classroom with second graders from Pennsylvania and seventh graders in neighboring New Jersey. Second graders submitted science questions using online forms for the seventh graders to research and answer with presentations. She also encourages students to teach one another in the virtual classroom through “live lessons.” Teachers like Ms. Dang are encouraging young people to learn from themselves and from one another — skills that will help them to think critically, embrace curiosity and see the world in new ways.


To the millions of teachers, including Mrs. Zazulak, Ms. McKibben, Mr. Martin and Ms. Dang, who create dynamic learning experiences that prepare and inspire our children to lead: thank you for the work you do every day. We’ll be posting more on Google for Education Twitter channel and here on this blog throughout the week. It’s a great time to thank teachers for the difference they make — share what you’re thankful for by joining the conversation: #ThankATeacher.

Posted by Hiroshi Lockheimer, SVP Android, Chrome OS and Chromecast

(Cross-posted on the Google for Education Blog.)

Editor's note: As we embark on this new year, we wanted to share a letter we sent to our Google for Education customers in North America celebrating the great work of 2015. Thanks to our entire education community for making 2015 such a strong year. We look forward to what we can do together in 2016 for educators and the world’s future inventors and changemakers.


Dear Google for Education Friends and Family,

What a year we’ve shared. First: thank you to the extraordinary teachers, students, administrators and others who make Google for Education strong. We couldn’t do it without you. In 2015 you activated 30,000 Chromebooks every school day more than all other education devices combined and you helped us grow to more than 50 million using Google Apps for Education (GAFE) and 10 million using Classroom.

As educators, you put Chromebooks in the hands of 90,000 students in Charlotte and 84,000 students in Chicago; you moved the entire Montgomery County, Maryland school district to GAFE and Classroom; you improved young learners performance by 19 percent with the support of Google devices at the Isle of Portland Aldridge Community Academy in the UK; and you brought science education to rural Australia using Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) and GAFE at John Monash Science School.

And we’re just getting started: here at Google we’re committed to bringing the best of technology to education. We’re investing heavily in Chromebooks and you can expect to see many new Chromebooks created for you in education. You’ll also see new management features for administrators, interactive educator support in our new Training Center and pioneering Chrome tools like this year’s Share to Classroom extension. And we’ll continue to bring Google innovations to the classroom as we did in September with the Expeditions Pioneer Program — already more than 100,000 students have taken virtual field trips to places like the Great Wall of China and Chichen Itza using Google Cardboard and a phone.

Giving back to education is important to us. Along with offering the GAFE suite and unlimited Drive storage at no cost to schools, this year we contributed more than $50 million, including more than $14M to education nonprofits, $1.3M in scholarships, and $21.7M funding new research. With programs like Google Science Fair, Made with Code, CS First and Doodle4Google, we’re working to inspire and encourage young people to solve tomorrow’s problems through curiosity, creativity and code.

Thank you so, so much. Your support in 2015 was an inspiration to us. We wish you a Happy New Year, and we hope to continue to do great things together in 2016.

Hiroshi Lockheimer
Senior Vice President for Android, Chrome OS and Chromecast

Take a look through our Google for Education 2015 Year in Review.

Stay in touch in 2016 at google.com/edu with our blog, Google+, Twitter or a Google Educator Group.

Posted by Anibal Chehayeb, Google Classroom Software Engineer

(Cross-posted on the Google for Education Blog.)

We built Classroom to save teachers time, and we know that grading is one of those tasks that can involve a lot of little time wasters. In fact, students have turned in more than 200 million assignments via Classroom to date, which adds up to a lot of grading hours. Today, we’re launching new features to help make grading a little faster and easier.

• Export Grades to Google Sheets: In addition to .csv files, you can now export your grades directly to Google Sheets. The Sheets template includes a class average and an average per student. If you have ideas about how we can make this export to Sheets even more useful, please leave us feedback by clicking the question mark at the bottom left of the Classroom page, then choosing “send feedback.” 
• Easier to update grade point scale: We know not all assignments are out of 100 points. You've always been able to change the point value, but a lot of teachers had trouble finding this feature. So we’ve made it easier to change the grading scale to any number you need it to be. 
• Keyboard navigation for entering grades: When you’re entering lots of grades, you need a fast way to navigate from student to student. We’ve added the ability to use the up and down arrows to move directly from the grade entry area for one student to another. 
• Sort by name on grading page: In addition to sorting students by completion status (done, not done), you can now sort by first or last name. 
• And in case you missed it last month, you can now add a private comment for a student when you’re returning their work. 

In addition to these grading improvements, we’ve been hard at work on other updates. We’ve polished the look and feel of Classroom on the web with icons to help differentiate items in the stream and added a cleaner look for comments and replies. We’ve also recently updated our Android and iOS mobile apps, so they’ll now load even faster. You can post questions for students on the go, and Android teachers can reuse previous posts. Finally, you can now post a question from the Classroom Share Button, which you can find on some of your favorite educational websites.

We hope you’ll find these updates helpful, and you’ll get a chance to relax and refresh over the winter break (or summer, for our friends in the Southern Hemisphere). Look for more Classroom updates next semester.

Posted by Kevin Hodges, Google for Education

(Cross-posted on the Google for Education Blog.)

Editor's note: We're going across the U.S. to shine light on the great things schools are doing with technology at the statewide level. Texas is up next. There we asked educators and administrators to reflect on how technology has changed what it means to teach and learn. From group projects to collaborative lesson plans, technology has improved the teaching and learning experience across the state. And we’re happy to announce that 100% of Texas’ online standardized tests can be administered on Chromebooks, giving educators an easy, secure way to manage the testing process. To learn more about Google solutions for Education, watch this recent webinar with Arlington Independent School District.

When students want to learn and collaborate with classmates, they no longer have to travel to the library after school or schedule time to work at another student’s house. With teachers and administrators in Texas integrating technology – including Google Apps for Education and Chromebooks – into their curricula, students can learn and work on assignments when they’re not in the classroom. Teachers are preparing students for college and future careers while staying under budget and saving time managing thousands of devices. Inspired by how schools are innovating with technology across the region, we’re highlighting a few of the successes we’ve heard about directly from Texas schools:

Leveling the playing field 

Google Apps for Education isn’t just a way to share information – it’s the learning hub at Arlington Independent School District (case study) in North Texas. Students and teachers at Arlington ISD create more than 50,000 documents in Google Docs during any given week, and students can access this bounty of information when they aren’t in the classroom. For example, physical education students used heart monitors to measure their heart rates during different activities. As a homework assignment, they analyzed the data in Google Sheets and shared their findings with their peers.

With the affordability of Chromebooks, more students have access to devices. When students leave the classroom, they can sign onto Chromebooks on loan through the 1:1 program and access Google Apps for Education to continue learning, regardless of their technology options at home.

Collaborating beyond the classroom walls 

North East Independent School District uses technology to create a collaborative approach across schools, so students on its 70 campuses can share their work with peers and teachers. They’re creating a global learning environment by sharing assignments in Google Docs with students at international schools and with subject matter experts to get real-world feedback. For example, a sophomore history class shared its Middle Ages project with students in Denmark. “These devices have captured student’s excitement to learn, collaborate and think creatively,” says Tom Johnson, senior director of technology at North East ISD.

Introducing affordable devices for 21st century learning 

McAllen Independent School District is introducing 12,500 Chromebooks this winter to give students 24/7 access to technology as part of its new initiative: Transforming Learning in the Classroom, Campus and Community. Students, teachers and parents provided their input on the devices they wanted, and the technology team evaluated the costs. “As we move toward a 1:1 model, we had to consider the cost of providing devices for students, the ability to manage 12,500 devices and the cost of fixing and replacing devices,” says Ann Vega, director of instructional technology at McAllen ISD. After the rollout, more students will have access to tools that will equip them with 21st century skills.

Schools continue to expand what it means to go to school by incorporating digital learning into their curricula. Technology inspires students to think beyond their lesson plans, whether they’re in study hall, waiting for soccer practice or on a family vacation. Check out the schools’ stories and watch Arlington's webinar to learn more.

We’ve heard great stories from many of you about how you’re using technology to do amazing things in your schools, so we're going across the U.S. to see for ourselves! Check out the map below to see where we’ve been. We’d love to hear what’s happening in your state, so please share your story on Twitter or Google+ and tag us (@GoogleForEdu) or include the #GoogleEdu hashtag. 

Posted by Per Jakobsen, CIO, Narvik Kommune, Norway

Editor's note: Today we hear from Per Jakobsen, head of IT operations and development at Narvik Kommune, a Norwegian municipality 343 kilometres north of the Arctic circle. Read how Google Apps for Work is being used at Narvik Kommune to make life simpler for staff, so that they can spend less time doing paperwork and more time managing healthcare, childcare, schools, transport and housing services for the people that depend on them.

Norwegians value the human touch in social services. We call this “warm hands,” and we know nothing can replace it. But as a municipality, we need cool efficiency to make sure that our carers, teachers and medics are in the right place at the right time for 20,000 citizens across more than 2,000km².

Photo by Pål Jakobsen

Every day, Narvik Kommune coordinates 1,600 employees across 58 locations — but our old email system was holding us back from doing our best work. An obsolete user interface made it difficult to navigate, spam was a chronic problem, and we depended on expensive consultants for maintenance. Buying 750 Google Apps for Work accounts hasn’t just resolved these issues at a reasonable and predictable price; it’s made Narvik Kommune more efficient, more reliable and more mobile. We worked with Avalon Solutions, a Google Apps Premier Partner in the Nordics, who contributed to the successful migration.

We’ve gained several hours each week now that we use stable and secure Google servers, instead of wasting time servicing a spam filter and antivirus software and troubleshooting email instability. And the minimal training necessary to use Google Apps tools means departments throughout Narvik Kommune are discovering creative and productive ways to use them — all on their own:

• Working together under tight deadlines in Sheets: Our economy team uses Sheets instead of Excel, so they can update documents simultaneously during hectic periods and avoid the delays and confusion caused by multiple copies when union representatives and others are involved in compiling records.
• Collecting and sharing information across teams with Sites: HR uses Sites to reach out more effectively through the organisation when collecting and presenting information on large internal procedures.
• Staying on top of meetings with Calendar: All teams use Calendar on our smartphones to organise meetings (and receive SMS notifications before they start).
• Digital discussion notes on Docs: All teams use Docs to take notes during discussions, which keeps everyone better aligned and saves time and cost on printing.
• Building budgets on Drive: Our councilman and managers across the administration used Drive to compile our last annual budget, saving time on a joint task that we would previously handle with fileshare documents that could only be opened and edited by one person at a time.

Most importantly, Google Apps for Work keeps our internal data secure. We have the added peace of mind knowing that our information is protected on one of the most secure infrastructures in the world.

With the flexibility of Google Apps tools, we can prepare for a smooth relocation while the Narvik town hall shuts down for two years of renovation and our core team spreads across three locations instead of one. We’ll use Hangouts on five Chromeboxes to meet and collaborate face-to-face, so we don’t lose that important personal interaction among teams.

We’ve been so impressed by the power of Google Apps, that we’ve extended the advantages of Google Apps tools to local students. We implemented Google Apps for Education accounts for each of the 2,000 pupils at our nine primary and lower secondary schools, and we’re trialling Chromebooks and Classroom. Digitizing public services with Google hasn’t just brought us national attention — it has freed up resources to invest in our future.

Posted by Hiroshi Lockheimer, SVP Android, Chrome OS and Chromecast

(Cross-posted on the Google Chrome Blog.)

Over the last few days, there’s been some confusion about the future of Chrome OS and Chromebooks based on speculation that Chrome OS will be folded into Android. While we’ve been working on ways to bring together the best of both operating systems, there's no plan to phase out Chrome OS.

With the launch of Chrome OS six years ago, we set out to make computers better—faster, simpler and more secure—for everyone. We’ve since seen that vision come to life in classrooms, offices and homes around the world. In fact, every school day, 30,000 new Chromebooks are activated in U.S. classrooms—that’s more than all other education devices combined. And more than 2 million teachers and students in more than 150 countries have the Share to Classroom Chrome extension, which launched in September and gets students onto the same webpage, instantly. Meanwhile, companies such as Netflix, Sanmina, Starbucks and of course Google, are using Chromebooks given the ease of deployment, the ability to easily integrate with existing technologies, and a security model that protects users at all levels, from hardware to user data. (Chromebooks are so secure you don’t need antivirus software!) IT administrators can manage tens of thousands of Chromebooks through a single web console, making them ideal for both classrooms and the workplace.

For everyday use, we’re proud that Chromebooks are continually listed as a best-selling laptop computer on Amazon.com. In an effort to make computing even more accessible, earlier this year we introduced the first $149 Chromebook—a fast, affordable laptop. And in the next couple weeks the Asus Chromebit will be available—an $85 device that turns any display into a computer so you can replace your old desktop with an affordable computer the size of a candy bar, or let businesses transform a billboard into a smart digital sign.

This year we've also worked to redefine the different forms Chrome OS can take, introduced the first designated Chromebook for Work, and brought more of your favorite Android apps to your Chromebook via Apps Runtime on Chrome (a.k.a. ARC). But there’s more to do. We have plans to release even more features for Chrome OS, such as a new media player, a visual refresh based on Material Design, improved performance, and of course, a continued focus on security. With our regular six-week software cycle and guaranteed auto-updates for five years, Chromebooks keep getting better over time. Finally, stay on the lookout for dozens of new Chromebooks in 2016.

Posted by Michael de la Cruz, Google for Education team

(Cross-posted on the Google for Education Blog.)

Editor's note: In this post, we’re sharing some of the great work that colleges and universities are doing with the help of Google for Education tools. To learn more about Google’s solutions for higher education, come visit us at EDUCAUSE – the largest higher education EdTech event in the US – October 27-30 in Indianapolis, at #1110 in the Expo Hall. We’ll be demoing the latest products with Googlers, administrators, professors and students giving short presentations throughout the week. And if you can’t attend EDUCAUSE, be sure to join our webinar with University of Texas at Austin on November 17th at 2pm EST / 11am PST.

Many higher education campuses are home to tens of thousands of students, thousands more staff, and dozens of buildings and academic departments — not to mention online learners. How do you create community and enable collaboration in academic settings that are the size of small cities, while making it easy for everyone on campus to learn and work together? Millions of students, teachers and administrators at colleges and universities around the world use Google Apps for Education to access their coursework from anywhere, communicate at any time, and share ideas for academic projects. In fact, the majority of U.S. News & World Report’s top 100 universities use Google Apps. Here’s how several major universities have brought professors, students and departments closer together.

Bringing Google’s best solutions to campus 

Introducing new technology tools often means adoption delays and integration headaches. At schools like Georgetown University (case study), where Google is already the top choice of many students and faculty for email and collaboration, using Google Apps for Education for official school business was a painless transition.

The high awareness of Google Apps, and its seamless integration with other systems, was also a deciding factor at North Carolina State University (case study). “For the students, many of whom were already using Google, it really was a no-brainer,” says Sarah Noell, an assistant director in the school’s Office of Information Technology.

Schoolwide solutions unify large campuses 

At the very largest universities, like the University of Michigan (case study) which has 43,000 students, separate schools and departments often choose their own email and collaboration tools — which means there’s no consistent way to share documents or manage email across the vast university community. With Google for Education, Michigan was able to unify all of its 19 schools under one collaborative solution. “When Google Apps for Education was introduced, there was a huge sigh of relief,” says Jeff Ringenberg, a faculty member in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science department. “Previously, it was very difficult for students and professors to keep their information synchronized.”

Professors and students work anytime, anywhere 

Not only do schoolwide collaboration and productivity tools unify campuses, they make it easy to tap into course syllabi, reading lists and progress reports from professors. At Brown University (case study), moving from Microsoft Exchange to Google Apps meant students no longer needed to carry their laptops around – they were able to choose any device on campus or pull out their mobile phones and immediately be productive. “All you need is a web browser,” says Geoffrey Greene, Brown’s director of IT support. “It doesn’t matter if you’re on your PC at home or on your Chromebook at work; you can do anything from any machine, anywhere.”

The students running Brown Market Shares, a food distribution program, use Google Drive to share meeting agendas and customer check-in sheets. “Using a Google Doc for our weekly meeting agendas, is useful because we can each add items to it before the meeting at any time of the day or night,” says Meagan Miller, an undergraduate student and Brown Market Shares’ communications coordinator.

Security and privacy help research and learning flourish 

With anytime, anywhere access, students and teachers need assurance that their projects can only be accessed by their chosen colleagues. Brown decided to adopt Google for Education in part because the university needed to protect in-progress research while encouraging collaboration from the campus community. The University of Texas at Austin made a similar choice: “What happens in the classroom should stay in the classroom,” says Christy Tran, a student intern working in CIO Brad Englert's group. “Students can trust that they’ll have a safe learning experience.”

Better communication and feedback beyond the classroom 

At UT Austin, home to 51,000 students, it’s not easy for professors to touch base with all of their students face-to-face. Google Apps lets feedback happen outside of class time or office hours. “I may only see students in class three hours a week, but we’re working together and editing classwork all the time, even on weekends,” says Angela Newell, a faculty member of UT Austin’s McCombs School of Business. “It allows us to move projects along much faster, and we can increase camaraderie with students.”

The University of Michigan’s Jeff Ringenberg collaborates with other teachers on his Electrical Engineering and Computer Science course syllabi and exams using Google Docs. “It eliminates the need to send thousands of versions back and forth,” he says. “We’ve streamlined the process of writing an exam, which frees me up to focus on communicating with students as opposed to generating content.”

There are many more stories about colleges and universities that are are re-thinking the ways they learn and work. If you’re in Indianapolis, we hope to see you in the EDUCAUSE Expo Hall at #1110. And if you can’t make it to the conference, be sure to join our webinar with University of Texas at Austin on November 17th at 2pm EST / 11am PST.

Posted by Cinthya Mohr, User Experience Lead, Google for Education

(Cross-posted on the Google for Education Blog.)

In a junior high class in Queens, New York, Ross Berman is teaching fractions. He wants to know whether his students are getting the key concept, so he posts a question in Google Classroom and instantly reviews their answers. It’s his favorite way to check for understanding before anyone has the chance to fall behind.

Across the country, in Bakersfield, California, Terri Parker Rodman is waiting at the dentist’s office. She wonders how her class is doing with their sub. With a few swipes on her phone, she finds out which students have finished their in-class assignment and sends a gentle reminder to those who haven’t.

Google Classroom launched last August, and now more than 10 million educators and students across the globe actively use it to teach and learn together, save time, and stay organized. We worked with teachers and students to create Classroom because they told us they needed a mission control – a central place for creating and tracking assignments, sharing ideas and resources, turning in completed work and exchanging feedback. Classroom is part of Google’s lineup of tools for education, which also includes the Google Apps for Education suite – now used by more than 50 million students, teachers and administrators around the world – and Chromebooks, the best-selling device in U.S. K-12 schools.

Here are a few of the stories we’ve heard from teachers and students who are using Classroom.

Learning better together 

We built Classroom to help educators spend less time on paperwork and administrative tasks. But it’s also proven to be highly effective at bringing students and teachers closer together. In London, fifth grader Kamal Nsudoh-Parish stays connected with his Spanish teacher while he does his homework. “If I don’t understand something, I can ask him and he’d be able to answer rather than having to wait until my next Spanish lesson,” Kamal says.

Terri, who teaches sixth grade at Old River Elementary School, also observes that Classroom can strengthen ties and improve communication. “When a student doesn't turn something in, I can see how close they are,” she says. “In the past, I couldn't tell why they didn't finish their work. I was grading them on bringing back a piece of paper instead of what their ability was.”

Resource room teacher Diane Basanese of Black River Middle School in Chester, New Jersey, says that Classroom lets her see her students’ minds at work. “I’m in the moment with them,” she explains. “We have dialogue, like, ‘Oh, are you saying I should use a transition?’ We’re talking to each other. It’s a better way.”

Removing the mundane 

By helping them cut down on busywork, Classroom empowers teachers to do even more with every school day. “I no longer waste time figuring out paper jams at the school photocopier,” says Tom Mullaney, who teaches in Efland, North Carolina. “Absent students no longer email or ask, ‘What did we do yesterday?’ These time savers may not sound like much, but they free me to spend time on things that I consider transcendent in my teaching practice.”

In Mexico City, teachers at Tec de Monterrey high school and university switched to Classroom from an online learning management system that often added complexity to their workflow instead of simplifying it. Professor Vicente Cubells says he’s found the new question feature in Classroom particularly useful for short quizzes, because he can quickly assess learning and have an automatic record of their responses and grades. “The Classroom mobile apps have also become essential for our faculty and students, we use them to stay connected even when we’re not in front of a laptop,” Cubells said.

Giving teachers superpowers 

Teachers are some of the most innovative thinkers in the world, so it’s no surprise that they’ve used Classroom in ways we never even imagined.

Elementary school teacher Christopher Conant of Boise, Idaho, says his students are usually eager to leave school behind during summer break. But after using Classroom last year, they wanted to keep their class open as a way to stay in touch. “Classroom is a tool that keeps kids connected and learning as a community, well beyond the school day, school year and school walls,” said Christopher, who continued to post videos and questions for his students all summer long.

These endless possibilities are the reason why Diane Basanese, a 30-year teaching veteran, says that Classroom is the tool she’s been looking for throughout her career. “It has made me hungrier,” she explains. “I look at how I can make every lesson a hit-it-out-of-the-ballpark lesson.”

Growing our Classroom 

Ever since we began working with teachers and students, it's been rewarding and encouraging to hear their stories, collaborate to find answers to their problems, and watch those solutions come to life at schools and universities around the world. Lucky for us, we’re just getting started.

Posted by David Quaid, Software Engineer, Google Expeditions

(Cross-posted on the Official Google Blog.)

At the Bronx Latin School in New York City, teacher Katrina Roman says the topic of ancient history doesn’t usually set students abuzz. But this week, they took a field trip to ancient Aztec ruins using Google Expeditions, a virtual reality teaching tool built with Google Cardboard. Normally, their assignment would involve poring over photocopied photographs, but instead, they stood at the top of Chichen Itza, then examined detailed carvings at Tenochtitlan. Amid “oohs” and “aahhs,” the students shouted out details they noticed and shot hands up to answer Ms. Roman’s questions.

Katrina Roman's class at the Bronx Latin School fills out their assignment after visiting Aztec ruins with Expeditions. The class is part of a history and geography pilot with New Visions for Public Schools.

Starting today, we’re bringing this experience to thousands of schools around the world with the new Expeditions Pioneer Program. During the 2015/2016 school year, we’ll be bringing “kits” containing everything a teacher needs to run a virtual trip for their class: ASUS smartphones, a tablet for the teacher to direct the tour, a router that allows Expeditions to run without an Internet connection, and Google Cardboard viewers or Mattel View-Masters that turn phones into virtual reality headsets. Although nothing replaces hopping on the bus for a field trip, there are some places that are just out of reach (hello, Chichen Itza!). Virtual reality gives teachers a tool to take students places a school bus can't.

To help teachers learn how to use Expeditions, we’ll be visiting thousands of schools around the world and bringing the kit for teachers to use in their classes for the day. Up first: Australia, Brazil, New Zealand, the U.K. and the U.S., followed by more locations as the school year progresses. At each school, our team will show teachers how Expeditions works and help set it up before class.

Right now, teachers can choose from a library of 100+ virtual trips to places like Mars, the Great Barrier Reef and the Great Wall of China. But we’re constantly adding more trips with the help of partners like PBS, educational publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, British documentarian David Attenborough and his production company Alchemy VR, and the Wildlife Conservation Society. We’re also working with The Starfish Foundation to help students explore future careers by showing them a virtual day in the life of professionals including a veterinarian and computer scientist. And to help students achieve those career goals, we’re working with First Lady Michelle Obama to support her Reach Higher initiative by taking students on virtual college tours.

And if you see one of these cars on the road, that's us! The folks at Subaru, who invest in education as part of their Love Promise initiative, have created a fleet of Expedition Pioneer Program rides that we'll be using to bring kits to schools.

If visiting Mars, trekking on the Great Wall of China or exploring what it’s like to work at a veterinarian’s office sounds like something your class would be interested in, head to the Expeditions Pioneer Program site and sign up.