QR Code Plant Scavenger Hunt

This week saw the third round of running the QR code plant scavenger hunt with my Year 7 class. The idea was born after I read 'Teach Like a Pirate' and loved the idea of the Safari Hook. Our school is built on the side of a cliff and most of it is concrete, yet there are still some great examples of plants that can be found all around. 

The first time I ran this activity, it took me over 8 hours to plan - from choosing appropriate resources for the girls to investigate, to creating the QR codes, finding places to put them along with clues to help the girls find them... and of course, a short trailer to introduce the activity. Thankfully, it doesn't quite take as long to organise as this anymore - but checking all the QR codes, re-distributing them, finding iPads that work, etc was still all necessary.

Thankfully the weather yesterday was beautiful. I was able to get to school early and put all the QR codes out before the students arrived. 

Come period 2, the girls arrived very excited as I had told them that this is what we were doing. I had borrowed the bank of iPads from our library to use as the girls no longer have their own as we have moved to 1:1 MacBook Airs for the Year 7s this year. Unfortunately, the iPads did not have YouTube loaded on them and the wi-fi was being a bit fussy - but after some quick thinking we overcame our issues and were ready to head out... after watching the trailer of course!

Once all the formalities were over, the girls headed off on their quest for knowledge. The weather was beautiful, the school was quiet and the girls had a great time moving from one area to another, working together, using the iPads and finding out about the different plant groups we had talked about in class.

The feedback from the girls was that they thoroughly enjoyed the activity - being able to do something different than sit in the classroom and listen to me talk, or simply look up things on the Internet.