Integrals Review Scavenger Hunt

Click here to get this Scavenger Hunt activity

A few weeks ago we started our unit on Integration in my calculus classes: Antidifferentiation, Properties of Definite Integrals, Riemann Sums, Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, and the Trapezoid Rule.

I originally wanted to also include integration by u-substitution in this unit, but that would mean having the test the week after Spring Break. I didn't want that for a few reasons:

1. I hate to split a unit around a long break.
2. I am not allowed to give homework over Spring Break - and I wouldn't want my students to have this looming test hanging in their minds during the break anyway.
3. The end of the marking period happens the day before Spring Break and those grades (when finalized) will be seen by my students' potential choice of college. Right now some of them have rather low grades, so they need this test to boost them.

I really like doing activities to help my students review for assessments. Most of the time I don't have time to find an activity that does *not* reward speed (I'm looking at you, Kahoot and Quizlet Live) so they end up just working on a set of problems that I provide and call the "Review Packet." (If you want to read more about not rewarding speed in a math class, read this post.) This time, however, I had an extra day to review for this test (see the aforementioned bit about how the test is happening right before Spring Break). So I created a Scavenger Hunt activity!

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Students scattered around the room (and in the hallway) working on the Scavenger Hunt. It seems that most of the students are in the hallway at the time the photo was taken. Hmm.

It went really well. I had 15 stations (so, 15 questions) posted around the room. I ended up putting 2 of the stations in the hallway, which was a nice change of pace - students always like to do work outside of the classroom.

Each station has one question toward the bottom half of the page and the answer on the top part of the page.

I used a deck of cards to randomly pair the students: for example, in one class I had 14 students. So I used the Ace through 7 of diamonds and the Ace through 7 of clubs. I shuffled those 14 cards and then asked each student to pick a card. So the students who had an Ace were partners, etc.

The students seemed to like this strategy of doing random partners. Normally I would have used flippity.net to randomly pair them, but the internet was down for my first class. Actually, it was one of my students that suggested using a deck of cards. And what math teacher doesn't have a deck (or two) of cards in his or her classroom? So I did this strategy in both classes even though the internet was back up by the time the second class started.

Each partnership started at a station of their choosing. They worked the problem at the bottom of the page, then had to go searching for the answer around the room and work the problem on that page. So, for example, if a group started at Station 6 and got -15 for their answer, then they find -15 at the top of Station 11, they next work the problem at Station 11.

My favorite part about this activity is that it is self-checking. I didn't need to be involved at all. One class is needier than the other so if they got stuck they came and asked for help; which was fine because it gives me a sense of what they're not understanding or remembering.

I will definitely do this activity again in the future. The 15 stations were maybe too much. My last class met the last period of the day on a Friday and they lost interest in the activity after about 40 minutes. Some of them had finished by then so I just let them hang out. I was ready to be finished for the day, too.

It would also be a good idea to have some sort of incentive to finish. Like, do these 15 problems with your partner, let me see your work then you get a piece of candy or a point in the gradebook or something.


Here's the Scavenger Hunt activity in case you're interested in using it in your class.

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