Grolier’s Nature: Virtual Serengeti makes it fun for kids 9 and up to learn vocabulary words, geography lessons, and information on the animals that populate the African wilds.

The student’s goal is to film the many animals that make up the diverse ecosystem present in the national reserve that is part of the Serengeti Plain. There are three tools that prove useful along the way: a compass, a video camera that stores and plays back the movies the student captures during the journey, and a fanciful electronic field guide containing brief notes on the more than 60 animals the child will encounter. The guide’s entries contain engaging and informative pictures, sounds, and videos.

The ability to pan through the scenery quickly or slowly heightens the sense of immersion. At any time, the explorer can zoom into the frame to see a 10-second movie. The films contain one- or two-sentence captions that help kids place them in the appropriate part of the guide’s multimedia notebook.

Capturing the videos seems easy enough at first, but finding the correct video will have your children padding through the Serengeti for hours—and learning in spite of themselves. With teacher assistance, children with learning and cognitive disabilities, visual impairments, and other disabilities can use the software effectively due to the high quality audio/visual features. The software costs $30 and is available for loan from the LINC software library.