This activity can be used with students of all different ages while out on a walk or spending time in your own outdoors setting and sending students to document specific findings.
Scavenger hunts lend themselves to exploring some cross-curricular content while having the students being physically active and connecting with nature. With the increased use of computers while in class and at home students can benefit from any physical activity and especially when it takes them outside.
Below are some lessons ideas to use with your K - 6 students:
Primary - Seasonal Scavenger Hunt
Grade 1 Specific Expectations: Daily and Seasonal Changes
1.2 assess ways in which daily and seasonal changes have an impact on society and the environment
3.5 describe changes in the appearance or behaviour of living things that are adaptations to seasonal changes (e.g., in fall, some plants shed their leaves and some birds migrate; in winter some animals change colour)
Activity:
- Take students outside with a bag or something to collect their evidence of season
changes. When they return snap a picture of their findings.
- Ask students a question and send them out looking the answer. When they return
take a picture of their findings (so you can review back in class) to talk about their
findings. Repeat with as many questions as you want.
- Also a great chance for them to collect and sort leaves by colour, shape and size
then teach them about the common tree species in their playground. What leaves do
they have around their homes? (they could bring in a leaf from their home and match
it with another student, or group of students in the class and perhaps use the group
for another activity)
- best if you can repeat this in fall and again in spring to complete the seasonal cycle
Junior - Exploring who their animal neighbours are
Grade 4 Specific Expectations: Habitats and Communities
1.1 analyse the positive and negative impacts of human interactions with natural habitats and communities taking different perspectives into account and evaluate ways of minimizing the negative impacts
2.2 build food chains consisting of different plants and animals, including humans
3.3 identify factors that affect the ability of plants and animals to survive in a specific habitat
Activity:
- Take your students outside in school yard and have a look for nature rich environment and take pictures of where they think the animals would live then walk to another location to look at the houses and have them take a picture of where they think the animals would live within the houses.
- Once they have the pictures documented, they can then compare the 2 pictures and write about it. What was different about these 2 habitats for the squirrels, birds and chipmunks? Instead of the squirrels climbing the trees, they are climbing the hydro poles.
- Is food easier to find in natural habitat? or in the man-made habitat (assuming
humans don't feed the animals)
- Optional: you can scatter some brightly coloured loose parts in the field and have
students act as any animal they want and try to gather food to eat
- This could be a great introduction into the food chain and how humans can affect the
ability of plants and animals to survive
What other ways have you incorporated technology into your classrooms?