I’m a fan of experiential learning to build connections and help students find the relevance, hopefully remembering some of what they learned. (If they truly learned it, they will remember. If it’s just storing the information in working memory, then you can wave bye-bye.)
Many times we ask students to find information using multiple sources, but we don’t coach them on how to do it. 7th grade Language Arts teacher Mrs. Clerke and I created a quick scavenger hunt to familiarize students with print references. If we were to jump straight into a big research assignment, the students wouldn’t quite know where to look. Add that confusion to students not realizing what information they really need for their project and a research unit becomes more exhausting than it should be.
Below is a copy of the handout we gave them for the scavenger hunt race. (This is also for Clerke’s and my reference in case the district wipes our computer user accounts and e-mail in the same year. What are the odds of that happening, right?)
Research Scavenger Hunt
Find a biography of a president. What’s the title of the book? Who’s the author?
Is Warsaw, Poland north or south of Prague, Czech Republic? What’s the title of the book? When was it published?
Let’s say you’re writing an essay and you want to start it with a quote about winter. Find a quote about winter. What’s the title of the book? Copy the quote about winter. Which page was it on?
Your teacher has asked you to make a travel brochure to visit Guyana from the story “Three Skeleton Keyâ€. Draw the flag from Guyana. What is the title of the book you found the flag in?
What are two synonyms for the word “sovereign� Which book did you use?
What part of speech is the word “jealousy� How do you spell its plural form? Which book did you use?
Who invented the Geiger counter? When did that person invent it? What country was that person from?
Name a type of fluke worm. What does it do? What’s the title of the book? Who published the book?
*Bonus Point: Draw the flag from Libya.
