⭐️ ‘Tis the season to be sleuthing…
Here’s a holiday mystery just for fun and perfect to do during the final class of December. I had fun creating this puzzling adventure. It includes colorful photos and videos of actual holiday events taking place this month all around the globe. The theft, in fact, is the only fictional piece in the activity! There really is a jewelry establishment in London called 77 Diamonds which designed the sparkling Christmas star shown here and listed it for $950,000!
| Note: This 2024 scavenger hunt has been updated and is now a one-stop journey on Google Earth. Clues, photos, and videos are all in GE (no separate slide deck). |
🎁 THE GAME
Notorious jewel thief, Tobias Grinn, AKA “The Grinch,” has stolen a diamond-studded Christmas star from a prestigious jewelry store in London. There’s a $100.000 reward for the recovery of the stolen jewel, and everyone’s after it. Student detectives, in search of clues, will “travel” around the world -via Google Earth– to unique holiday destinations.
The hunt may take up to 90 minutes! Students can “play” independently, in pairs, or in small groups. The object is to successfully determine the location of the stolen Christmas star and return it for the reward.
The activity requires careful reading, but if students are successful, at the end they’ll type in a password to “find” the star on a password-protected page.
🎁 GETTING STARTED
All students need is a device connected to the internet, preferably a laptop or iPad, and this notetaking sheet. The presentation utilizes the web version of Google Earth, and pictures and diagrams explain all students need to know about using the navigation tools and format, so they need no prior experience with Google Earth.
THIS LINK is all your students need to begin the activity. IMPORTANT: When sharing the link with students, follow the directions below. The TEACHER GUIDE and ANSWER KEY have already been sent to subscribers to the site. If you do not wish to subscribe, you can request the guide and key HERE.
If your students have been working hard and you want to send them off for the holidays with a smile, I think this will work well for you! Enjoy!
What can you add to our Holiday/ Seasonal page? If you haven’t checked it out, there are additional activities to do at this time of year, including a reading of the classic “Gift of the Magi,” a marble challenge based on Gingerbread Man Loose at Christmas, a 3-D Coded Snow Globe Project, and some unique writing /art activities. You can also find additional virtual scavenger hunts to use at other times of the year.
HI Donna,
Is there a reason why the link to make a copy isn’t working?
Hey, Cami. Try refreshing the page. I changed the link because the activity had to be updated. There was a broken link. If that doesn’t work, let me know!
It still says “Sorry unable to open the link at this time.”
I sent you an email with a new link!
Key not sending via email. Is there another way to receive it?
Dayna, I did try emailing you again. The next best way would be to join our Facebook group!
The link looks different to me, other than just some updated info. Last year when I used this it was a Google Slides presentation. This new link is in Google Earth. Is that correct?
That’s correct, Heather. In our Facebook group, I explained that the Google Earth project is just easier for me to update each year. I also think it makes for an easier “journey”- not having to go back and forth from slide deck to Google Earth. I hope it will still work out for you. If not, I think it would be easy to take screenshots and make a slide presentation. Let me know if I can help. Thanks for your question because you are probably not the only one wondering.
The DASHING THROUGH THE SNOW scavenger hunt is still a slide show. The main reason is that it includes very short video excerpts and you cannot crop YouTube videos in GE projects. So, that one will remain as a slide deck + links (for now).