Teaching Guide - The 5 Clue Challenge

The 5 Clue Challenge was created for two reasons. First, my students needed a way to play a Mystery Skype type game with children in distant time zones who were not in school at the same time. Second, I wanted a way to share my travels with my students, who live in a small, rural town. Since creating this learning resource years ago, I've often been asked questions about the best way to use it with students. This page is designed to give you some ideas.

I have led workshops and professional learning sessions for teachers around the world on the topics listed on this page and many others. If you are interested in having me facilitate a workshop for your teachers or speak at your conference, visit my workshop/speaking page and send me an inquiry. 

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Teaching how to research

Reading non-fiction text, identifying bias, and learning how to navigate internet search engines are all vital skills for students to learn. Here are some tips to help students learn to be better researchers. (We use Google as our search engine)

1. Have a conversation about what makes a source "reliable" before playing. Pop-up adds mean the site is likely trying to sell you something. Lots of opinions, hyperbole, and charged language shows heavy bias. Help kids understand that all websites aren't equally reliable. Show examples of good sources and questionable sources. 
2. Most novice researchers will want to type entire questions into the search bar. Help them understand keywords and how to narrow searches to 2-3 terms. 
3. Help students understand when to use Google Maps (when you want to see a place with a specific name on a map), and when to use a search engine (when trying to learn more about a place). If you aren't entering the specific name of a place, you shouldn't use maps.  
4. Sites that end in ".edu" are universities, sites that end in ".gov" are from the US government, etc. Those sources tend to be reliable in most cases. Teach kids to start their search with "site:*.edu" or "site:*.gov" in order to limit search results to websites with those endings.
5. Google Images can be handy when a clue gives you the colors of a flag. Help students understand that looking at images is usually a poor substitute for actually reading information in most cases, though.
6. Help students learn these Google Search Tips and Tricks.

Combining 5 Clue Challenge with your Curriculum

We all want students to have fun while they learn, but we also have curriculum and content that we need to teach. These tips will help you use the 5 Clue Challenge to do both at the same time.

1. We were often taught in our teacher preparation programs that we should start lesson planning with content and then look at ways to teach it well. I've found in my career that this is backwards. We should start with learning experiences that make kids light up and get excited, and then find how to channel that excitement so that they learn the content we need to teach. This is a skill that gets easier with practice. It's also one of the skills that I often work with teachers to develop in workshops.
2. As a science teacher, I often use these videos to teach and reinforce the concepts of classification, adaptations, biomes, etc. Even location videos can be launching points for discussions about animals and plants in different parts of the world, Earth/Sun relationships and seasons, and other concepts.
3. Mathematics model our lived experiences. Use questions like "How long would it take to get to this location on a plane?", "What would a one-week trip to this location cost?", and "Can you use an algebraic expression to show the relationship between this country's currency and US Dollars?" 
4. If you teach reading/literature/language, find books that have settings in the locations of the videos, have students blog about the location they 'visited' or explore how different cultures affect the literature that comes from those regions. 
   

There are applications for any subject. Hopefully the above examples gave you some ideas to get started.

Building Critical Thinking

While it's easy to build critical thinkings skills by playing the 5 Clue Challenge with your students, having them create their own forces them to really have to use higher order thinking skills. In order to successfully plan and create a video, they'll have to research, analyze information, and evaluate their clues to determine the best order. They can create videos in any of the categories on the site, or develop videos on topics nobody has dreamed yet. Last year, students in Staten Island, NY created "Mystery Instrument" videos, and my students created "Mystery Planet" videos when they were studying the Solar System. Help your students tap into their creativity to use what they learn in class to develop new 5 Clue Challenges.

Extension Activities

Once your students have completed a few 5 Clue Challenges, here are some other ways to bring global learning experiences to your classroom.

1. If you teach children between the ages of 7-11, Empatico will allow you to connect your class with children in a location more than 300 miles away for free. There are built in learning activities for partner classes to do. This is the easiest way I've found to start connecting your class.
2. Find a class to play Mystery Skype! It's a lot like the 5 Clue Challenge, but you play in real time against a class in real time via Skype. You can find connections using #MysterySkype on Twitter or through the Skype in the Classroom website.
3. If you want to actually connect with a group of students in a location you learned about through the 5 Clue Challenge, you can use the Skype in the Classroom website to find classes in any location willing to connect via Skype. The easiest way is to use the map feature on the Mystery Skype page. 
4. Take your students on a virtual field trip. You can travel to a museum, national park, or even Antarctica! Amazing people like scientists, authors, social innovators, and computer programers are happy to talk to your class for free. In addition to Skype in the Classroom mentioned above, some of my favorite places to find virtual field trips for my class are Exploring by the Seat of your Pants, Discovery Education, Living Maths, Q?rius by the Smithsonian Institute, and Skype a Scientist.