Scavenger Hunt Games used as Tool for Lifelong Learning Centers

Scavenger hunt games as tool in lifelong learning, is the name of the collaborative project between the Icelandic software company Locatify and Símenntun in Vesturlandi. The project received a grant from the Education Fund of the Employment Training Center in Iceland in 2020, where ways of how to use treasure hunt games in education were explored. The project ended with an online course in game creation at the end of November 2023.

Símenntun á Vesturlandi is a Lifelong Learning Center and a non-profit organization and is approved by the Ministry of Education and Culture to provide continuous education. It seeks ways of improving education to promote and strengthen the Icelandic society and business through continuous and lifelong education. They teamed up with Locatify to explore new ways of teaching and learning.

Its aim was to promote diversity in teaching methods in secondary education, to gamify learning and to connect it to the environment so that students can learn and play at the same time while participating in an orienteering game. 

Teachers of Lifelong Learning Centers in Iceland can now use Locatify’s Content Management System and the treasure hunt game app Turfhunt to prepare teaching materials for their students. Tools for lifelong learning were refined and the teaching system was developed further and various challenges were added to the game system, improved methods are now available to share knowledge.

The collaborative project ended with an online learning course on the usage of the CMS and the game app, which was offered to teachers of all Lifelong Learning Centers in the country. A teacher from Locatify taught the course, while representatives of Símenntun in Vesturlandi invited teachers in other Learning Centers to participate. The group of teachers who participated in the course can continue to work together on game creation and share projects and question banks to prepare teaching materials for education. It is expected that scavenger hunt games will be used as a tool in lifelong learning in the years to come.