It’s here! This week is Geography Awareness Week, and I’m excited to share some tech-friendly ideas for exploring the world with your students. Augmented reality scavenger hunts can get your kids moving both inside and outside the classroom. With an AR creation tool like Metaverse, teachers and students can create scavenger hunts for Geography Awareness Week.
Geography Awareness Week
If you haven’t heard of Geography Awareness Week before, it was first established by presidential proclamation more than two decades ago. Geography Awareness Week is an annual celebration that takes place the third week of November. National Geographic started this special week to help people of all ages learn more about geography.
On National Geographic’s website for Geography Awareness Week (which you can see here) they describe geography as: Geography is the study of places and the relationships between people and their environments. Geographers explore both the physical properties of Earth’s surface and the human societies spread across it. They also examine how human culture interacts with the natural environment and the way locations and places can have an impact on people. Geography seeks to understand where things are found, why they are there, and how they develop and change over time.
So what does this special week have to do with augmented reality and my friends at Metaverse? Teachers and students can create scavenger hunts to explore your school and community using this powerful platform!
Augmented Reality Scavenger Hunts
I was first introduced to Metaverse last year. It’s been very exciting to see this augmented reality creation tool embraced by educators. During my travels to work with schools and educators this past year, I’ve seen different use cases for Metaverse in action. When it comes to augmented reality scavenger hunts, Metaverse gives teachers and students lots of options as creators. Metaverse is entirely free and makes it easy to create augmented reality experience – without having to code.
Whether you’ve designed your own scavenger hunt before or participated in this type of activity, AR scavenger hunts take this experience to the next level. Teachers and students can create AR scavenger hunts using GPS locations around a school or by pasting QR codes inside your classroom.
How does it work? After logging into Metaverse, teachers and students can decide on a pathway for a scavenger hunt. As the creator of a scavenger hunt, you determine what participants will see when they scan a QR code or get to a specific GPS location. For Geography Awareness Week, you can decide where students will explore – or how they will create their own scavenger hunt.
Special Metaverse Features
Metaverse is a powerful augmented reality tool, but it is designed to be easy for new users and those who aren’t super familiar with augmented reality. In this linked video, you can see how to get started with Metaverse and add experiences to your scavenger hunt. When you create a scavenger hunt with a Media Wall, you can have students submit a range of responses during a scavenger hunt activity. They can respond to polls and timed trivia, and even explore 360 videos – a perfect feature for Geography Awareness Week.
In the video above (and linked here), you can see a student-created augmented reality scavenger hunt in action. For Geography Awareness Week, you might place augmented reality experiences on top of a map to explore the world. Or you can explore different locations in your community. If you aren’t specifically studying geography with your students this year, you can make connections to a range of learning goals while kids move around and learn more about their world around them!
You can start creating augmented reality scavenger hunts today. Just head over to Metaverse’s website to design your own activity for Geography Awareness Week or any week!
