Breaking children or students into small groups to work on a scavenger hunt is a way to promote teamwork. The participants will have to work together to find the items on their list, relying on the various skills they individually bring to the group. In order to succeed, they will all need to learn how to cooperate and work toward a common goal.
Some items on a scavenger hunt may have obvious locations given the environment or shared experiences of participants. Other items, however, may require some critical thinking to locate. These types of items will encourage students to use and develop their problem solving skills and work outside the box to find certain items. The incentive to win the scavenger hunt will encourage them to use their brains in ways they may not be used to.
Depending on the setup of the scavenger hunt, there may be room for only one winner. As with many games played with child participants, a scavenger hunt can teach sportsmanship. The individuals or teams that do not win will likely be disappointed after having put a great deal of effort into finding the items on the list, but if they are able to sincerely congratulate the winners they will have learned a valuable lesson in sportsmanship.
In many scavenger hunts, the participants are given a sheet of instructions, a list of items to locate and nothing else. Some scavenger hunts are set up so that the participants must follow a set of instructions in order to locate the required items. This is an opportunity to teach the participants the importance of following directions, an important social skill with many real-world applications.