These online expeditions are designed to help teachers foster students' cultural understanding. Teachers and their students watch and listen as the explorers immerse themselves in other cultures. Through the explorers, they meet faraway children and communities and are inspired to tell stories about their own hometowns. Students often discovered that their 'similarities' list was longer than their 'differences' list. Classrooms participating in an expedition have many opportunities to interact with and get to know each explorer.
Participants first connect to the expedition by reading the explorers' journals.
In each journal the unique perspective of an explorer emerges through his or her personal narrative. According to Fran, Rob had been having academic difficulties, but his problems lessened and he became more engaged in learning after he began to see the online expedition from the explorer's perspective. The explorers then write extensive profiles of each host student from the student's perspective. By including information on the students' daily schedules, their family lives, and their communities, these student biographies give participating classrooms firsthand views of life in other cultures. After discussions begin in a classroom, teachers and students can post their ideas in the Explorer's Club, a moderated message board, and in the Gallery, an area where students can display their project-related work.