The Northern Times
  • News
  • Lifestyle
  • Culture
  • People
  • What’s happening
  • Economy
  • Opportunities
No Result
View All Result
  • News
  • Lifestyle
  • Culture
  • People
  • What’s happening
  • Economy
  • Opportunities
No Result
View All Result
The Northern Times
No Result
View All Result

Virtual Museum Tours, free-to-access learning, and film libraries: The Northern Times’ guide to Free online culture and education

March 20, 2020
in Uncategorized
Home

Something to keep the mind busy at home, for young and old!

By Alexis Veenendaal

Most of us are stuck indoors during this pandemic, and you might be wondering how you can still explore the wonderful culture outside of your living room. So, why not let your boredom be replaced by a virtual, interactive experience? You can see thousands of famous art pieces and be transported out of your home and into the virtual halls of a famous museum. 

With kids out of school, this is an educational opportunity to get your kids involved in the interactive experience. But there’s more, with various publishers, film-studios, cultural institutions; and scientific institutions putting thousands of hours of content online for young and old.

Museums and Galleries

Google Arts & Culture teamed up with over 2500 museums and galleries worldwide to share exhibits in virtual tours. Visit the Van Gogh Museum or the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, plus many others internationally. 

You can enter a virtual tour of the pieces by the iconic artist, Vincent van Gogh, via the Van Gogh Museum. This museum hosts the largest collection of works by van Gogh, including over 200 paintings, 500 drawings, and over 750 personal letters. 

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam also has a virtual walk-through. You can explore works from the Dutch Golden Age, including the works of Vermeer and Rembrandt. Tour through this museum’s halls with Google’s Street View tour. 

Paris Museés, the organisation that links the incredible collection of museums and galleries in Paris has made images of all of its art freely available online. There’s no better place to get inspiration for your own sketches, paintings, or sculptures than here!

A little spot of culture

It’s not just museums in the Netherlands – it’s worldwide! And when you’re done exploring some of Google’s top museums, you can also sit in on the New York’s Metropolitan Opera’s digital show offerings every evening until 22 March.

OpenCulture also has an enormous library of content, from kids activities, to short films on the arts, e-books, and more. 

Literary Treasures

A number of publishers and authors are making their books available (temporarily) for free. A broad list is available here, whilst the Cambridge University Press is also offering free access to its library of highly-regarded textbooks and scholastic resources. The British Library has, for over 1,000 years, been legally mandated to receive a copy of every book published in the United Kingdom. It has a huge range of online resources, that are now available for free.

Tell me a story!

Similar to the various publishers and libraries, audiobook companies have been making their content available more widely. Audible (owned by Amazon) has made its books, stories, and poetry available in six languages for free. Storyline Online has made its collection of children’s audiobooks and stories available for free, and includes narrators such as Betty White, James Earl Jones, and Kevin Costner.

Stuck inside, but eye-to-eye with a tiger!

Significant numbers of animal parks, reserves, and zoos around the world have live-cams, so you can get a glimpse into such places as the Djuma Game Reserve in the world-famous Kruger Park in South Africa. Others include the Smithsonian Zoo in Washington DC has a Giant Panda cam (amongst others), the San Diego Zoo has several, including a ‘Polar Cam’. Groningen’s own Zeehondcentrum Pieterburen has a live stream of its Seal pool. 

The Three R’s

Though schools in the Netherlands may be closed (aside from for children of key workers) that doesn’t mean that learning has to stop. Most schools have also provided online lessons or take-home assignments, but to supplement these, Scholastic (a US-based publisher) has made its ‘learn at home’ materials available for free. National Geographic Kids has hundreds of hours of content on everything animal-related, whilst Seussville (the online site for the Dr. Seuss series of books) has several read-along stories and phonetic exercises.

Additional reporting for this piece (with great thanks!) by Ella Zuidema-Piepers

Image by David P Howard, via Geograph.ie. License here.

Tags: animals livaaudiobooksculturefreeonlineteaching

Related Posts

The Northern football clubs’ monthly round-up: August
Sports

The Northern football clubs’ monthly round-up: August

August 28, 2023
FC Groningen: A Fallen Giant Lifted by Its Supporters
Sports

FC Groningen: A Fallen Giant Lifted by Its Supporters

August 16, 2023
Dutch women’s football team roars into the World Cup
Sports

Dutch women’s football team roars into the World Cup

July 19, 2023

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Popular News

  • Father and six children from Ruinerwold lived in basement for years waiting for the end of time

    Father and six children from Ruinerwold lived in basement for years waiting for the end of time

    2874 shares
    Share 1149 Tweet 718
  • Scottish company working on ferry service between Edinburgh and Eemshaven

    1827 shares
    Share 731 Tweet 457
  • German students score rap hit with “Bonnetje Mee”

    1731 shares
    Share 692 Tweet 433
  • Two COVID-19 Coronavirus cases confirmed in Province of Groningen

    1492 shares
    Share 597 Tweet 373
  • Olympic champion Epke Zonderland now a doctor

    1375 shares
    Share 550 Tweet 344
The Northerntimes is powered by: TopDutch

No Result
View All Result
  • Arts
  • Contributors
  • Covid-19 News
  • Covid Chronicles
  • authority
  • personal
  • photo reportage
  • professional
  • Crime
  • Culture
  • Drenthe
  • Dutch history
  • Econ 050
  • Economy
  • Education
  • Eurosonic Noorderslag
  • Friesland
  • Groningen
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Make it in the North
  • National
  • News
  • Nightlife
  • Opinion
  • Opportunities
  • Education
  • People
  • Expats
  • International students
  • Politics
  • Shopping
  • Sports
  • submitted articles
  • Top Dutch Business
  • Travel
  • Typical Dutch
  • Ukraine
  • Uncategorized
  • What’s happening
  • World

Welcome Back!

OR

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In

Add New Playlist

Submit a article

Send in an article to be published on The Northern Times.

Send a news tip

Got a story idea or want us to be aware of anything?