ORIENTHUNT: The Development of a scavenger hunt to meet the needs of a first year engineering orientation.

Abstract

Orientation is an essential part of the transition into engineering studies. A successful orientation introduces students to their department and to university studies, providing important information and assisting the students in making friends and acclimatising to the university lifestyle. Scavenger Hunts have the potential to satisfy the objectives of university orientation, delivering information to students through the active learning environment of a campus-wide roaming team-based activity. Through the combination of team work, communication and information processing, the pitfalls of “traditional” orientation programs can be avoided. This paper describes the development and implementation of a Scavenger Hunt for First Year Engineering Orientation. The goals of traditional orientation programs will be discussed, with the challenges and flaws of these approaches identified. The development of the Scavenger Hunt is presented, highlighting how the items on the list map to the objectives of Orientation. The paper concludes with a reflection upon a trial implementation of the scavenger hunt with a subset of the first year engineering cohort.