Sometimes students don’t understand how time is of the essence when doing research. They lack the skills to use text features, skim materials, and find items quickly. Not only does this slow down their work, it often results in incomplete research and general frustration.
It is a struggle year after year.
However, we have managed to find some activities that help students refine their research skills: scavenger hunts. It turns out that making research fun and game-like can have a positive impact on how students complete research.
When Research Was Books…
Growing up, the internet wasn’t even a thing. We know that dates us, but it also made us pretty good at using books to find information. Each week we would head down to our school library where we would learn some new skill like using a card catalog, reading an index or finding information is that giant set of encyclopedias.
Now, most schools don’t have a card catalog, lots don’t have encyclopedias and some have even tossed out the very helpful librarian. School money is no longer spent on library books as more and more technology is purchased and needs to be replaced. If you’re lucky enough to still have a librarian, you have an untapped resource. You should read our post: Research Skills: The Library for more ways to put that library to use.
We’re all for technology, but books serve a very specific purpose-text features. Now, if you want more information about that, we recommend you read our post Research Skills: Text Features for more information about how you can teach these in your classroom.
If you have technology…
Just having the devices in your classroom will not teach your students how to find information. It’s important to show students how to use search engines, figure out if information is accurate or not, or even how to use them safely. We have more information in this post Research Skills; Google Search and in our Online Safety and Digital Citizenship lesson plans.
We needed a way to combine the use of books with the use of technology so students could learn to search for information quickly and accurately. It needed to be something that students could combine what we teach in class with the skills they can apply on their own.
We came up with scavenger hunts.
Now, for fun we sent our students on a very simple scavenger hunt where we went outside and found something in nature. We don’t recommend this activity during the winter as it makes finding some of the items very tricky, but give our Nurturing Nature Activities a try. You can find it in our Resource Library or we can email it to you when you join our email list.
It was low tech, but it taught students to check to see what they are supposed to be looking for. That’s a vital skill when doing researching-what information are you trying to find.
For a more high tech version of a scavenger hunt, try using the app Goose Chase. You can create scavenger hunts forever!
Scavenger Hunts in the Classroom?
The premise is simple: give your students something to search for. We use scavenger hunts because they are low risk, are quick to do, and help students build confidence by creating an opportunity to be successful.
Start very simple
Our scavenger hunts always start with one little question: Find the name of the province that has Fredericton as its capital city. We give students books, maps or pretty much anything we can find.
It usually takes them a few minutes to figure out they should be looking up Fredericton instead of reading through a map hoping they’ll see it. We teach them about the index and how it can quickly help you find (or not find) the topic in a book. Game changer!
Then we branch out to something students are less likely to know: Find the capital city of the country of Guyana. This is much more difficult, because we don’t really have any materials where this would be found (we recently tossed a globe that a teacher was using because the USSR was still on it). So, here is where we introduced looking online.
We practice, we play games and look for things. Students even quiz themselves as we improve our skills.
Once students can find these things quickly and simply using books (and online when we’re ready) they can begin to look for more complex items that are not as easily found.
We start off the task allowing students access to books and textbooks that we have already determined have information that will be valuable to students. We explicitly teach students how to read photographs, charts, pictures, maps and graphs so they can use the information to deepen their understanding. Once students have good information, we start to allow them to find information online-but a big part of this step is teaching students how to determine whether or not the online information is accurate. We teach students to fact check, This includes teaching students to find out about the website, verify the facts on more that one site and confirm the information is up to date.
Branch out
After teaching some skills and practicing with students over the course of a few days or weeks, we eventually set our students loose on a longer, more in-depth scavenger hunt. We teach in a Grade 4/5 classroom, so our students so the scavenger hunt for their content in social studies. you can get your own copy of these in our store.
Canadian Geography Scavenger Hunt: This focuses on cities, towns, teams and other geographical details from within the borders of Canada. Two different paper versions as well as a Google Slides version so your students can work on this whether you’re teaching in the classroom or if they have to be out of the room for distance learning.
Alberta Scavenger Hunt: This scavenger hunt looks at the cities, towns, teams, and other geographical details from within the borders of Canada. It includes two different paper versions, which our students use as a book. There is a Google Slides version included so your students can work on this whether you’re teaching in the classroom or if they have to be out of the room for distance learning.
We made a British Columbia Scavenger Hunt that includes cities, towns, and teams related just to BC. And we were asked to create a Saskatchewan Scavenger Hunt, so we did. We have been slowly creating new scavenger hunts for each province and territory because they’ve become so highly requested. We now have a Manitoba Scavenger Hunt.
Use This Between Other Lessons
These are not “quick” activities. We introduce them and then let students pick away at them over the course of the term (or in one case all school year-long) when they have all their work finished. Some of the students enjoy the challenge of trying to find an answer for every single clue. Others try to find several answers for the same clue.
Most students do not find every single answer. That’s ok. That really isn’t the purpose. It’s not about getting all the answers and winning. It’s about learn to develop quick skills that can be used over and over when doing research in any subject area.
We know there are more skills to prepare students to create quality research, but having students learn to locate information quickly has significantly helped our students with their overall research skills.
Do you use scavenger hunts? There are so many online that you should have no trouble finding one that works for your classroom. Give them a try!
Do you have an idea for another one we can make with our students? We are always looking for new topics. We often loop with our students so we never do the same exact activities for two years in a row. Leave us a comment below and maybe we’ll create it for you.
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