50 incredible Google Arts & Culture experiences you can try as Expeditions shuts down

Educators love Google Expeditions – it lets them take their students on virtual field trips across the world and through time right from their classrooms by way of virtual reality. They can experience different cultures and learn about history in a magical way and it’s been a tool that’s transformed education into an engaging and tangential learning experience. Sadly, the Expeditions app will no longer be available for download after June 30, 2021, but there is a good reason for the decision to shut it down and an even better silver lining – Google Arts & Culture.

Arts and Culture is Google’s free initiative to bring the world’s art and culture online. Users can explore museums, heritage sites, and wonders of the world right from their classrooms and homes both with and without VR headsets. Most of the 360 tours provided in Google Expeditions will be migrated over to Arts and Culture and will be accessible not only from its Android and iOS apps but also from the web. This opens up the ability for anyone to experience these tours from any device. Google seems to have decided this so that it would become more accessible during the pandemic and with the massive shift in hybrid learning technology that this year has brought about (read: at-home learning, virtual classrooms through video meetings, and most likely the surge in Chromebook sales).

Google says they hope that the transition of Expeditions to Arts & Culture will provide educators with a bridge to continue to use immersive content to transform their classrooms and enrich the learning experience for their students. I’ve long since been a herald for Google Arts & Culture and today’s news provides me with the opportunity to give you a list of incredible reasons you should check it out. While others have been off playing with core Google services, I’ve always enjoyed taking the time to dig through the site and find interesting and unique things, and today I want to share some of them with you. Be sure to check out these 50 incredible Google Arts & Culture experiences and share them with your students. (Note: Some will require the app while most work on the web. Not all will be linked, but feel free to explore and be sure to turn the site into an icon for easy access!)

1. Use a camera filter based on an iconic art style
2. Virtually visit museums near you
3. Use Google Arts & Culture in VR with daydream
4. Explore Harry Potter in the British Library exhibition
5. listen along as art comes to life
6. Answer art trivia
7. transform yourself into an Artwork
8. collect art that you ‘like’
9. Color in the Pyramids
10. learn about culture in-depth
11. find museums near you to visit post-COVID
12. Take a selfie and see which artist you resemble
13. guided tours of museums
14. discover art based on color
15. Get a weekly dose of culture
16. get a street-level view
17. paint a Jackson Pollock with paint and string
18. guess the famous artwork
19. Color famous paintings
20. do a visual crossword
21. compare cultural moments in time
22. Solve artistic jigsaw puzzles with family and friends
23. explore headwear from around the world
24. see the homes of famous artists
25. read stories about literature
26. learn about artist’s lives
27. Read stories of the past, present, and future of sports
28. explore outdoors with 360 videos
29. explore space in 360
30. see dinosaurs come to life in 3D and AR
31. discover classic fashion trends
32. (Try to) read historic documents up close
33. Open a fantasy map and navigate through an ocean of books
34. compose melodies like a maestro
35. Fill your favorite painting with your colors!
36. Travel around the world with a pesky penguin
37. Explore the CO2 footprint for individual foods and diets in the US, France, and the UK
38. Dive into an acidifying ocean
39. Explore what-if scenarios for climate crisis
40. Witness glacial retreat over 140 years
41. Decode Egyptian Hieroglyphics with Machine learning
42. Enjoy an orchestra in 360°
43. Discover what happened today in history
44. Project art portraits into your house
45. Sketch to discover inspiring artworks
46. Discover extraordinary details in Japanese scrolls and screens
47. Create your own dance
48. See historical connections between pieces of art
49. Discover historical events
50. Experience shadow art through technology (coming soon)

Explore Google Arts & Culture