1. It might be possible to draw upon the resources
/ materials of the Digital Library for Earth System Education for this endeavor.
If you are not familiar with this resource I suggest that you check it out:
Of course this would depend on site's
administrators. But it would be worth checking out.
2. Regarding on-line field trips: There is an
increasing science education literature base on how to build educational field
trips (and even more specifically geological field trips). This could be used as
a starting point for designing a common platform for designing regional
(web-based, virtual) field trips that incorporate some of the design ideas
tested in the sci-ed literature. This way the virual trips have a common
starting point and look which might make it easier for someone who does not live
in the same area to make comparisons with his / her area.