It is the beginning of the school year where a whole new batch of students has just come into the school and returning students may need a refreshing start. With the help of LED school signs, the administration can encourage students to feel comfortable, interact with one another and find their way about the campus. A scavenger hunt is the best way to break the ice and bring about a fresh start.
What is a scavenger hunt all about?
In this game, the players themselves will create the teams. Just give them a list of what needs to be found. These items have to be presented at the finishing stage and the winners will receive cool prizes.
How can LED school signs help?
Advertise the scavenger hunt on LED school signs around the campus and display the prizes so students are encouraged to participate. Give them a web-link on which they can register themselves as individuals or as teams. You can then email the hunt list to students when the game begins.
Location
Consider what places the students will need to know and visit during their first few months on campus. Obvious locations would be the bookstore, cafeteria, library, sports center, washrooms and so on. Make the hunt a far ranging event so all important areas are covered and at the end of the game, every student has visited the key areas at least once. LED school signs can be made interactive with way-finding incorporated into the signage solution so students can find shortest possible routes from one place to the other. Physically being present at a location will create an embedding memory in the student’s mind and finding those locations again will be very simple.
Items or Information
Do you want players to physically get things from various locations? If so, hide those items there and tell them to look for the items. Another option is to take pictures of items at certain locations and upload those pictures to a common platform, which can then be displayed on the school LED sign. Everyone has a Smartphone these days so this shouldn’t be a difficult task. Although with this option judges have to make it clear that each picture has to be unique. Otherwise students will simply share the pictures among themselves.
Instead of items, the game could be an information hunt. Participants could be asked to write down a list of questions they would ask staff when they arrive at the library for example. This method will provide more useful guidance about their surroundings.
What Kind of Hunt?
Your scavenger hunt can be a free form one with no particular priority order in collecting items/information or going to places. If you want to have a predetermined order, make sure to have different versions because it will be chaos if all students try to pick the same item at the same time.
For this game, you can also join hands with local businesses that are targeting your students as a target market. Take a neighboring coffee shop for example and direct the students to visit the shop and get a free coupon. You can take a small charge from the café for attracting students and this will help offset your own costs.
Equipment and Rewards
If your hunt involves students physically collecting items, hand them a small bag, and a notepad and pencil for noting down things. If photographs are involved, check to see if each team has at least one fully charged phone with a camera.
As for rewards, worthy ones for students would include discount vouchers for cafés, healthy food stores, bookstores, cafeteria, and so on. Money conscious students would cherish such rewards. Additionally, school gear such as shirts and hats are also great prizes. Think of things students may want to own but cannot afford to spend on. A sweatshirt showing that they’ve won the scavenger hunt will be much appreciated and when the winners wear it around school, it shows a lot of spirit within the student body.
Winners of the game can be exhibited on LED school signs and there will be much encouragement from other students to participate and try harder the next time around.
Keep in mind that the main point of this game is to break the ice among students in a fun way and encourage them to get to know not only other students but also the staff and the campus. If successful, everyone will be talking about this scavenger hunt for months. And also, you have successfully got them glued to your digital signage system for any information that they want. It’s a win-win situation for the school and the students.
