1. Arrange students into groups. Each group needs at least ONE person who has a mobile device.
2. If their phone camera doesn't automatically detect and decode QR codes, ask students to
4. Cut them out and place them around your class / school.
1. Give each group a clipboard and a piece of paper so they can write down the decoded questions and their answers to them.
2. Explain to the students that the codes are hidden around the school. Each team will get ONE point for each question they correctly decode and copy down onto their sheet, and a further TWO points if they can then provide the correct answer and write this down underneath the question.
3. Away they go! The winner is the first team to return with the most correct answers in the time available. This could be within a lesson, or during a lunchbreak, or even over several days!
4. A detailed case study in how to set up a successful QR Scavenger Hunt using this tool can be found here.
Question | Answer |
| 1. 1. An average golf course in a tropical country such as Thailand needs 1500kg of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides per year and uses as much water as 60,000 rural villagers | Negative | 2. 2. The tour operator Discovery Initiatives, which is a member of the Tour Operators, makes an annual financial contribution to the Orangutan Foundation of some US$ 45,000. The money is earned from only 5 tour groups of 10 people each visiting the Tanjing Putting National Park in Central Kalimantan. The park is under huge pressures from deforestation and river pollution from unrestricted gold mining. This money directly funds park staff and rangers, rehabilitation efforts for young orangutans, and the care center. It provides almost the only economic support for saving this park, where the park fees are officially only the equivalent of 12 pence a day | Positive | 3. 3. In winter 2000, 76,271 people entered Yellowstone National Park on snowmobiles, outnumbering the 40,727 visitors who came in cars, 10,779 in snowcoaches and 512 on skis. A survey of snowmobile impacts on natural sounds at Yellowstone found that snowmobile noise could be heard 70% of the time at 11 of 13 sample sites, and 90% of the time at 8 sites. At the Old Faithful geyser, snowmobiles could be heard 100% of the time during the daytime period studied. Snowmobile noise drowned out even the sound of the geyser erupting | Negative | 4. 4. The Wider Caribbean Region, stretching from Florida to French Guiana, receives 63,000 port calls from ships each year, and they generate 82,000 tons of garbage. About 77% of all ship waste comes from cruise vessels. The average cruise ship carries 600 crew members and 1,400 passengers. On average, passengers on a cruise ship each account for 3.5 kilograms of garbage daily - compared with the 0.8 kilograms each generated by the less well-endowed folk on shore | negative | 5. 5. The Seychelles in the Indian Ocean is introducing a US$ 90 tax on travellers entering the Seychelles. Revenue will be used to preserve the environment and improve tourism facilities | Positive | 6. 6. In West Virginia (US) a whitewater rafting tax is collected from everyone who participates in a commercial rafting trip. The fee goes toward studying the environmental impacts of rafting. In addition, the rafting companies participate in several river cleanup days each year | Positive | 7. 7. There are 109 countries with coral reefs. In 90 of them reefs are being damaged by cruise ship anchors and sewage, by tourists breaking off chunks of coral, and by commercial harvesting for sale to tourists. One study of a cruise ship anchor dropped in a coral reef for one day found an area about half the size of a football field completely destroyed, and half again as much covered by rubble that died later. It was estimated that coral recovery would take fifty years | Negative | 8. | 9. 8. In Belize, a US$ 3.75 departure tax goes directly to the Protected Area Conservation Trust, a Belizean fund dedicated to the conservation of the barrier reef and rainforest | positive | 10. 9. In industrial countries, mass tourism and recreation are now fast overtaking the extractive industries as the largest threat to mountain communities and environments | negative | 11. 10. Since 1945, visits to the 10 most popular mountainous national parks in the United States have increased twelve-fold. In the European Alps, tourism now exceeds 100 million visitor-days | negative | 12. 11. Observing wild and semi-wild orangutans in their natural habitat is a significant environmental education opportunity for large numbers of domestic visitors. To enhance this education experience, the existing station at Bohorok, North Sumatra is to be transformed from a rehabilitation center into an orangutan viewing center. By developing ecotourism for orangutan viewing under the new project, all visitors will gain a rewarding personal experience from orangutans, wildlife and the rainforest ecosystem in general. Moreover, tourism will continue to provide a major source of income for the local population, thus promoting sustainable forest utilization as a genuine alternative to timber exploitation and the poaching and trade of wildlife | positive | 13. 12. Every year in the Indian Himalaya, more than 250,000 Hindu pilgrims, 25,000 trekkers, and 75 mountaineering expeditions climb to the sacred source of the Ganges River, the Gangotri Glacier. They deplete local forests for firewood, trample riparian vegetation, and strew litter. Even worse, this tourism frequently induces poorly planned, land-intensive development | Negative | 14. 13. In the Great Lakes region of Africa, mountain gorillas, one of the world's most endangered great apes, play a critical role. Their habitat lies on the borders of north western Rwanda, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and south western Uganda. Despite 10 years of political crisis and civil war in the region, the need for revenue from ape-related tourism has led all sides in the conflict to cooperate in protecting the apes and their habitat | Positive | 15. 14. Establishment of a gorilla tracking permit, which costs US$ 250 plus park fees, means that just three habituated gorilla groups of about 38 individuals in total can generate over US$ 3 million in revenue per year, making each individual worth nearly US$ 90,000 a year to Uganda. Tourism funds have contributed to development at the local, national and regional level. The presence of such a valuable tourism revenue source in the fragile forests ensures that these critical habitats are protected, thus fulfilling their valuable ecological function including local climate regulation, water catchment, and natural resources for local communities | Positive |
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