Scavenger Hunts

The Internet is an enormous collection of answers. The challenge is to find them. Scavenger hunts help students discover how diverse this information resource truly is. Through scavenger hunts students also gain experience harnessing the Internet and strengthening Internet browsing skills. Developing a scavenger hunt is one method teachers can use to teach academic concepts and teach navigation skills to students. Scavenger hunts can be of two primary types.

In one type of scavenger hunt, the focus is on Internet search skills. The teacher develops a series of questions or requests a series of items for the student to collect, and the student uses a search engine with appropriate search techniques to locate the information.

In the second type of scavenger hunt, the teacher develops a series of questions and gives the student a hypertext link to the URL that will answer the question.

In either case, developing a scavenger hunt is really no different from developing a general knowledge quiz for students. A teacher may take the following steps:
• Identify an idea/concept that he/she would like to reinforce or introduce.
• Search for web sites that reinforce/introduce the concept.
• Develop questions that may be answered at the site.
• Save it to a web site, put it on the computer, or give students a paper handout.

A well developed scavenger hunt will require higher order thinking skills in order to get students to use the information found at the web sites. While there are some topics that deal mainly with factual knowledge gathering, most scavenger hunt topics can lend themselves to deeper thinking. For example, teachers may ask students to react to information gathered. Students may apply the information to other scenarios.

Scavenger hunts are something students enjoy. The topic should be limited so that information gathered is not too broad. When used for instruction, a scavenger hunt focuses on a particular theme that the teacher is introducing.

The following sites provide examples of scavenger hunts:

China
http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/China/chinahunt.html

Samples from teachers
http://webtech.kennesaw.edu/jcheek3/shunts.htm

Dinosaurs
http://www.davidson.k12.nc.us/hunts/Dino.html

Ants
http://www.bijlmakers.com/entomology/begin.htm

Great scavenger hunt on forensic science for elementary and middle
http://www.cyberbee.com/whodunnit/crime.html

Cyber Hunt Kids Library
http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/instructor/cyberhunt_kids.htm

Internet Hunt Activities (several are problem-based learning projects)
http://homepage.mac.com/cohora/ext/internethunts.html