Spotlight on Digital Media And Learning

2.15.10 | After Carl Smith’s “The Plan of Chicago: Daniel Burnham and the Remaking of An American City” was selected as the 2009 One Book, One Chicago read, the Chicago Public Library announced a number of programs to promote and complement the event.

There were book group discussions; screenings of Burnham documentaries; a one-man play; and expert discussion panels. All were designed to provide greater depth and understanding of Burnham and his work.

One program that got less notice, however, was one of the more innovative – a high-tech scavenger hunt for teens based in technology called geocaching.

An increasingly popular digital game, geocaching lets players search for hidden clues with mobile-enabled GPS systems that locate hidden “geocaches” via their geographical coordinates. They then use the clues they find to move on to the next treasure.

At the Chicago Public Library, YouMedia program managers Erica Neal and Taylor Bayless used geocaching as a way to engage teenagers in learning about Burnham and how his plan affected the city they call home. 

“We don’t necessarily want students’ interaction with [the topic] to be just in the library,” Bayless says. “If there is an opportunity to have the students go out into the community, make it as interactive as possible, it’s way more exciting than having them read facts about Burnham and the work that he did.”

Geocaching, Bayless says, is a way to get the students active and to have them participate in “finding history throughout the city.”

For the hunt itself, Bayless and Neal hid little slips of paper in plastic test tubes (geocaches) around the city, each one containing information about Burnham and his plan.

Entering coordinates into their mobile phones, students were able to get within 10 meters of each tube before having to conduct a physical search in the hollows of trees, under bushes and in other hiding places.

At each stop, students would learn something about Burnham’s vision for Chicago and get coordinates and clues to the next geocache.

“They were working with coordinates, basic math and historical facts,” Neal says. “It was very much a project-based learning environment. It took away the educational feeling and made it feel like play. It was almost like they were running through a video game.”

Literally. According to Neal, one of the most striking examples of the success of the mobile game was the competitiveness it sparked between groups of kids. The kids would find a clue and literally start running to get there first.

“They were so driven to finish and the competition made it automatically fun,” Neal says. “It’s not often that you get high school students to run after facts.”

The pair supplemented the game by explaining the larger historical context of Burnham and his work both before and during the scavenger hunt. The overall message the kids took home was that Burnham had made decisions a hundred years ago that are still shaping their city.

Due to the obvious constraints of a Chicago winter, the scavenger hunt is on hiatus until it gets warmer. But, Neal and Bayless said they were happy with how geocaching engaged students in learning about a topic they might think was too complicated when read in a book.

Games like the scavenger hunt, Neal says, may not bring new people to the library, but they may inspire those who do come to return.

“Once you get them in the door, it helps them see that the library is about more than just books.”

RELATED: For more on YouMedia and their work on the Burnham project watch Spotlight’s Finding Daniel Burnham / Finding Community and Remixing Libraries—New Teen Space Integrates Digital with Books.

Photo: Teens geocaching in downtown Chicago this past summer, courtesy of YouMedia @Chicago Public Library.