Internet scavenger hunt

An Internet scavenger hunt or CyberHunt is an educational lesson which introduces the Internet to students. It is often used as tool for teaching students how to search the Internet and how to use the resources and information available on the Internet. It is an online activity in the form of a scavenger hunt that focuses on gathering information from web sites to answer questions or to support a concept on a particular theme or content area. The intent is to hunt for facts or information to add details for the answer to the question. The questions themselves may vary from the simple fact or statement to the more complex, depending upon the age and skill level of the student. By completing CyberHunts, students learn how to navigate a web site, scan a page for detailed information, and then apply the facts or ideas to the question. A CyberHunt is an excellent way to teach beginning internet researching skills.

An Internet scavenger hunt is a fact-finding exercise where students answer a list of questions or solve problems as they practice information seeking skills. A hunt can serve as a powerful tool to introduce the study of a new subject or to supplement the exploration of various sides of an issue.

Although hunts frequently move from web site to web site, some direct a student's exploration of a single, content rich site. The single site strategy is employed to introduce users to the elements of a highly sophisticated site like the Library of Congress site, the government site Congress.gov or the Smithsonian site. This permits the teacher to highlight the key areas of a web site.

The first Internet Scavenger Hunt was developed in 1992 by Rick Gates. He was a professor at the University of California at the time. He created the hunt to encourage adults to explore the resources on the Internet. Gates distributed the questions to various Usenet newsgroups, LISTSERV discussion lists, and Gopher and FTP sites. He offered a prize for successful completion. As time went by he developed themed and then highly challenging hunts like researching a single email address.

Beginner hunts are highly directive taking the user via a link, to the specific web page. A moderately challenging activity takes the user to a web site that has the answer to a posed question and requires them to choose an appropriate link, use the site map, or site search engine to locate facts that support their answer. The most sophisticated activity may post several open ended questions that require the student to make many choices including search tool and method, web sites and finally the correct supporting information.

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