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Digital Scavenger Hunt

Subjects

• Language Arts
  
• Exercise and Movement
  
• Science Process Skills
  

Grade

• 3-5
  
• 6-8
  

Brief Description

Armed with digital cameras, student teams take photos of scavenger hunt items and use the photos to create a slideshow.

Objectives

• work together to find items listed in a scavenger hunt. Items must be in the school or on school grounds.
• team up to take digital photos of each item and return to the classroom within a 50-minute time frame.
• display photos in list order in a PowerPoint or Appleworks slideshow.

Keywords

technology, teamwork, cooperative, digital, camera, scavenger hunt

Materials Needed

• one digital camera per team of approx. 5 students (Option: one digital camera -- teams take turns working with camera for one 50-minute session)
• AppleWorks or PowerPoint
• projection device

The Lesson

To complete this activity, students need to know how to operate a digital camera and how to create a slideshow using AppleWorks or PowerPoint. If students do not know how to do those things, instruction -- including time for hands-on practice by each student --should be provided.

Begin the lesson by arranging students into teams of 5 or more. Provide each team with the list of items below, but do not explain what each item might be.

* Something that opens and closes
* Something that changes shape
* Something that rolls
* Something that has the school name on it
* Something other than a room that the entire team will fit into
* Something that flashes
* Something wet other than water
* Something round that water will go through
* Something that is only red and orange
* Something soft and round
* Something hard and green
* Something with gears
Feel free to adjust the list. A science teacher might focus the list on different properties of matter.

Teams should discuss the objects and come to a consensus on what each might be.

Make the ground rules for the activity clear to students. Discuss for example whether they may go outside the building to take pictures, their responsibility to not disturb other classes, and so on. Set whatever parameters you think necessary.

Allow teams about 50 minutes to take photos of the items on the list and convert those digital photos into a slideshow. (Adjust time as needed; students will need to plan and organize their time.) When all the slideshows are finished, allow teams to present their slideshows one at a time. Discuss the ways in which different groups interpreted the items on the list.

You might provide some kind of reward for the team students think did the best or most unique job.

Assessment

Teams will be assessed by teacher or peer observation on

• teamwork;
• clarity of pictures;
• appropriateness of pictures to meet criteria; and
• their slideshow presentations.

Submitted By

VaReane Heese, Springfield Elementary School in Springfield, Nebraska

Education World®
Copyright © 2003 Education World

10/24/2003

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