8/13/2019 TreasureHunts.doc

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/treasurehuntsdoc 1/1

Internet Treasure HuntsEasy-to-create online problem solving activities for your students

What is an Internet Treasure Hunt?In its simplest form, a treasure hunt is a list of questions, with links to web sites that provide the answers.Of course, the quality of the activity increases as you increase the quality of your questions, and of the web

resources that students visit.

How do you create an Internet Treasure Hunt?1. Come up with a list of questions that are related to your content area and that require higher-level

thinking and problem solving.2. Find web sites that provide information students need to formulate quality answers or solutions.3. Combine these questions and web links on a web page, provide some instructions and structure to guide

the students to the desired final outcomes, and add your web page to the navigation section of yourSchoolCenter site.

What are the characteristics of a great Internet Treasure Hunt?

• Questions that require extensive research and problem solving (it should not resemble questions at theend of a textbook chapter).• Web resources that go beyond simple text information and that take advantage of the strengths of the

web (data that is updated frequently, primary documents not available in print form, multimediacontent and activities).

• Activities built into the treasure hunt that require students to synthesize and apply all the informationand answers that they have gathered, or requires them to create a product that accomplishes this.

Some interesting examples:

Tropical Treasure Hunthttp://www.tooter4kids.com/Rainforest/TropicalTreasureHunt.htm

Very simple design, but note how the students are required to bring together all that they learned in this treasure hunt at the end tocreate a final product.

Worm Facts Internet Hunthttp://homepage.mac.com/cohora/ext/worm.htmlThis is an example of a sprawling layout, in which the teacher included a variety of different types of challenges and questions.

Smoking Scavenger Hunt from PBShttp://pbskids.org/itsmylife/parents/lesson_plans/smoking_scavenger_hunt.htmlThis one is in the form of an extensive lesson plan. It goes beyond the simple question and link-to-the-answers format by includingproblem solving activities.

Environmental Scavenger Hunthttp://homepage.mac.com/cohora/ext/environment.html

Example of a very extensive treasure hunt (45 questions!). It is in the simple question and link-to-the-answer format.Benjamin Franklin Extraordinaryhttp://homepage.mac.com/cohora/pbl/f/f.htmThis one is in a very interesting format, and might not even be considered a treasure hunt. Students are required to first identify whatthey do not know and what they do know.

Museum Maniahttp://www.museummania.com/ The clues listed are in both multiple-choice and short-answer formats- Perfect design for a SchoolCenter Test Bank page!

And… Even more examples—Oodles of them, sorted by subject areahttp://www.techtrekers.com/scav.htm http://www.gigglepotz.com/inspirek_scav.htm