Internet scavenger hunts can be an outstanding method for students to accomplish research. The advantage of a scavenger hunt is that it acts as a guide through the internet. Despite being a very useful tool, there is a great amount of undocumented information “floating” out in cyberspace. Most students have the same philosophy (including mine) in regards to the internet; if they find it on the internet, they want to believe it! Scavenger hunts result in efficient, practical, and constructive research time.
Scavenger hunts do not take that much time to prepare for. Basically, they can focus on any subject or topic a teacher can think of. I have used them when teaching about economic indicators in Economics and researching political philosophies in my government class. Simply provide websites and questions to answer at each site, and you have a scavenger hunt. It is an excellent way to promote, group work, a contest, or individual activity. In actuality, you could do a hunt as an entire class!
Below I have provided a few links that can get you familiar with internet scavenger hunts and provide you several ideas/hunts. At the very minimum, give yourself a topic and start hunting!
