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Web Scavenger Hunts for Students

© Stacy Peters-Walters

Web Scavenger Hunts are fun methods for increasing your students' web surfing and research abilities while finding important information to introduce a new subject or topic. Arlys Peterson from the University of Sioux Falls in Sioux Falls, SD has created a directory of student-friendly web scavenger hunts. Her directory can be found at http://www.usiouxfalls.edu/~apeter/scave... Included in this article is a summary of several of these scavenger hunts with their web addresses.

Christopher Columbus and His Amazing Voyages URL: http://www.geocities.com/EnchantedForest... This scavenger hunt lists four online index cards with questions about Christopher Columbus such as: "What did Columbus discover on his second trip?" and "What was promised to Columbus if his trip was successful?" and "Why does Columbus receive so much attention if he indeed did not discover America?" Students are also given a list of nine student-friendly Columbus web sites to find their information.

Revolutionary War Internet Scavenger Hunt URL: http://mrspskids.tripod.com/rwhunt.html This scavenger hunt is broken into the following searchable categories and questions: Prelude to the Revolution - Causes and Events, Important People of the Revolution, Battles of the Revolutionary War, Trivia, Independence!, and A New Nation. Each section contains question such as "On what date was the Revolutionary war officially ended?" and "After Lexington, where did the British go?" The questions have links with related web sites for searching.

Poetry Scavenger Hunt URL: http://olp.swlauriersb.qc.ca/webquest/po... This scavenger hunt includes links to ten poems. Each poem has a question associated with it. For example, in the poem "I've Seen My Kitchen Sink", students need to read the poem and determine all the items that the author slipped on.

Internet Scavenger Hunt for Geometry URL: http://users.mfi.net//~forest/tmath/scav... This site lists seven geometry related web sites with specific questions and tasks that students need to complete. For example, there is a comic site labeled "Non-Euclidean Geometry". Students are directed to read the comic and explain why it is humorous mathematically.

Nursery Rhymes Scavenger Hunt URL: http://www.enchantedlearning.com/rhymes/... Scavenger hunts are not just for older students! This Nursery Rhymes Scavenger Hunt is a safe place for young students to read and search critically for information about their favorite nursery rhymes. The site includes twenty questions about various nursery rhymes, with a link to a nursery rhyme site to search for the answer. An example question is "Where does the Muffin Man live?"

Solar System Scavenger Hunt URL: http://www.enchantedlearning.com/classro... This site is geared towards younger students who are being introduced to the solar system. The site includes fifteen questions that can be found in an online solar system glossary. The site teaches not only about the solar system, but also glossary/dictionary skills such as finding a word that begins with an "S" and is a planet with rings around it.