Using Scavenger Hunts to Get Students Moving in Virtual Learning ▬ Spencer Author

Using Scavenger Hunts to Get Students Moving in Virtual Learning

Scavenger Hunts

Spencer Author: 9.23.2020 by John Spencer 

When we hear the terms “virtual learning” or “remote learning,” it’s easy to imagine students spending eight hours a day in front of a screen. However, as educators, we know that this approach isn’t developmentally appropriate. Children need to move around and interact with their physical world. They need to explore new learning in a way that is hands-on and tactile. This is why we need to craft virtual lessons that take students off-screen and get them moving and making.

Teachers all over the world have been incorporating movement into virtual and online spaces through the use of scavenger hunts. I love how flexible the scavenger hunt structure can be. You might design a simple scavenger hunt around a child’s home or you can design a more complex and elaborate scavenger hunt within the larger community. A scavenger hunt can help a kindergarten discover shapes in their world or find environmental text. However, a high school senior can use a scavenger hunt as an ethnographic study of the structures and systems in one’s community.

The Power of Scavenger Hunts in Distance Learning

A scavenger hunt is pretty much what it sounds like. Teachers give students specific clues or items that they find from their homes or around the larger community. This works well as a video-conference activity, but it can also work as a series of photos that students take and upload to a shared file. Students can work in teams using the breakout room function, or they can work independently. The following are a few scavenger hunt ideas:

Math scavenger hunt: Students find specific items in their homes that connect to core math concepts.

Maker scavenger hunt: Teachers give students a list of item specifications. It might be something soft, something elastic, something round, etc.

Science hunt: When students are learning about natural environments, they might use their phones to take snapshots of different environments in their neighborhood

History hunt: Students can do a walk of their city and find elements of culture or find identifiers of history (such as street names or plaques).

Language Arts scavenger hunt: At a younger age, students might explore environmental texts. They can search for sight words on something like a cereal box.

P.E. scavenger hunt: Students might have a set of challenges where they have to hop to certain items and then do a series of jumping jacks when they find another item.

Music scavenger hunt: Students can do a scavenger hunt where they have to record certain types of music that they hear in the environment.  

3 Ways to Structure Scavenger Hunts

Scavenger hunts can be synchronous or asynchronous. Here’s a quick refresher on what those terms mean and when to use both types of communication tools.

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The Divergent Thinking Scavenger Hunt

A divergent thinking challenge is similar to a design sprint, but it’s built on the idea of creative constraint. With limited resources, students must then use items in new and unusual ways.  Listen to the Podcast 14:47

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