Jan 26 ~ How A Scavenger Hunt Can Incorporate Life Skills

 "Welcome to group! Today we are going outside in the cold, grim, windy weather, to compete in a 'Hometown Photo Scavenger Hunt'!" ...is exactly how I introduced yesterday's activity to the bi-monthly girls Life Skill students.  

Now how in the world, you ask, does a photo race incorporate life skills? AhHa!...I'll get to that, but first a little info on how we did it.

The race had two teams of 3 girls each and an adult driver. The rules were simple...

  1. Everyone had to participate in the hunt, directions, and incorporate teamwork
  2. A total of 21 items had to be reached on the listing of 25, with 3 bonus items available for extra points only after meeting the 21 total. 
  3. Group Photos had to include the whole group - Driver too
  4. 1 camera had to be used for all photos
  5. Have fun, but be back to our meeting point by ___ time
We split them into teams (broke up sister pairs and friend pairs - Oooo how mean of us!) and then headed off to the chariots to race around Delta for a chance at great prizes and bragging rights! 

Here is the list they had to work with:

Still wondering how this little adventure builds life skills?

Look at some of the items on the scavenger list.  They had several items that took walking up
Log Cabin 

to someone (person they knew, a Mail-person, a cop, etc...) where they would be required to initiate conversation, tell them what they were doing, and politely ask if they could or would be apart of the photo. 

This takes a lot of courage for these young ladies, but they were willing to step up to the challenge and interact! 


Mailwoman (we knew)

Sometimes they didn't have a positive experience. The US Postal Office clerk wasn't allowed/comfortable with being photographed.  But we were surprised when an un-named officer said they could get a photo but not publish it. Obviously, it's not displayed here but you understand! 

Slidin!
Another skill that they had to use was team work and communication. In my vehicle, I told the girls each had to come up with ideas for where to find items, and everyone had to participate in the outdoor photos even if they weren't a group photo required. All opinions mattered and everyone had to have input into the adventure! We have some very shy girls in our group so this made it very fun and exciting when even they got into the racing! 

Reading and keeping to the rules was important too. When you are given a set of parameters to follow in life, you better stick to them or else you might get in trouble for veering! I had to remind my group several times about following the set rules so we didn't get DQ'd for missing something significant! 

Overall, everyone had FUN and at least our car had a lot of laughs! We ended the adventure with ice cream and stories from the road. Maybe not a traditional classroom lesson, but life lessons practiced none the less! 

Mural and Group Photo!

Until next time, Keep on STEMin! 

P.S. If you would like to complete a photo scavenger hunt of your own, there are a ton of resources online. I've attached an excel version of ours that can be used as a template too! 



I am a STEM/k12 Educator with Colorado State University Extension. I love working with youth and encouraging them to participate in many forms of hand on education! Overall, our goal is to promote positive youth development and encourage youth to pursue higher education after high school.

Comments

New comments are not allowed.

Popular posts from this blog

Dec 10th ~ Why Home Economics?

Image
 Soap Box Time! One of the things I think that we've lost in public education is the Home Economics training that so many young people need to function properly as adults. When I was in school, we were taught how to cook and clean, how to mend things rather than toss them away, and how to balance a check book. Today in our 'test score %' society, it's hard to find that old fashion education in any of the curriculum books. And I find that really disturbing since it's many of these basic skills that we depend upon daily to function. However, thankfully I'm not the only one this concerns. Many educators still offer such classes and learning opportunities for youth to gain these skills. One such group is located in Delta, Colorado. Two Tuesday afternoons a month, a group of middle and high school girls get together with their 3 head instructors for what they call Life Skills training. From the creation of their squad, they have covered a plethora o
Read more

Jan 21st ~ Measuring at the Meniscus!

Image
The New Year is here and Problem Based Learning projects (PBL's) are once again shaping up for schools in our community. This time around, we are back with Oak Grove Elementary School to work with 4th graders. I won't give away their PBL question, but they are learning how a rain gauge works and will be collecting precipitation rates all semester with the CoCoRaHS Rain Gauge donated to their school. Our (Dr. Barbara Shaw and myself) first visit was to both introduce the PBL question and to teach kids how to measure liquids in graduated cylinders, beakers, and the rain gauge. The first step when measuring water is knowing that water has adhesive properties, meaning it likes to cling to surfaces. This can be seen when you pour water into a glass container and then meet the surface at eye level. What do you see? Probably something similar to the example below. Example of water in a glass measuring container. Where do you measure when it is a curve? Water will curve (
Read more

Sept 12th ~ Getting Back in the Groove of STEM

Image
  Welcome back to school!  Yes, some of you have been at your desks since August already, but time flies as you get older (Trust me....).  It's exciting to see that STEM is taking a front row seat in our districts' this year as each school has brought on a STEM coordinator to bring the joy of hands on education through Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics!  I'm going to be brief today but want to share just a couple of fun resources available through our STEM Programming this year! Three (3) In-Classroom/Home Chicken Incubators available for loan out to study life cycles/sciences.  These kits include all the materials needed to go from a fertilized egg to the live chicks and engages students in discussions about the industry, parts of the egg and cycles, creating a farm, and even life and death conversations and dissection's.  25+ STEM Kits for Check-out through our kit loan program.  Like a backpack program, STEM kits can be checked out from any of our th
Read more