What secret does Old Granny left behind? Let us go to Shui Hau to dig it out! The descendants of Old Granny living in Shui Hau grew up in cities, and have not visited their seniors in the village for a long time. With the request from the seniors, they are going to find the heirloom using the treasure map of Lantau. Be ready, descendants! Make good use of the knowledge on culture and ecology of Shui Hau village that you will learn in your journey. Start your treasure hunt and decode the message left by Old Granny!
Orienteering Game is a problem-solving activity that requires interaction with the actual environment. And the ‘real-life scenario’ element chimes in with outdoor experiential learning that OWLHK advocates. Therefore, we integrate activity objectives and learning focus into ‘problem solving’, to let students learn about the habitats, biodiversity, and culture of Hong Kong and Lantau through games.
Hence, we designed a story using Shui Hau in Lantau as background, and held this themed game in ‘ECF Exploring WILD Lantau’ for thirty primary and secondary schools. All the ‘descendants’ learnt well through playing!
The problem-solving process involves proactive on-site observation, knowledge absorption and consolidation, analysing, and reasoning. Players have to focus on completing every single task in order to obtain clues to solve the mystery, which greatly improves the learning incentive of players.
For example, players are required to find specific plant species in the village according to the hints given, and these plant species are closely related to the daily life of Shui Hau villagers in the past. After completing all the tasks, players need to integrate everything learnt, connecting the tasks and combining all clues. We believe by now everyone will remember the local culture and plant species of Shui Hau by heart!
Puzzle Solving Tools
After 30 times of activity, thanks to all her descendants, the secret of Old Granny of Shui Hau Village could be passed on!
Feedback from participated teachers and students:
‘The Secret of Old Granny’ is the very first try-out of orienteering game of OWLHK! We also designed another similar activity for a local farm, allowing visitors to explore the area through games and learn the ecology there. We hope to continue expanding our orienteering game map, dedicating to cover more biodiversity hotspots in different communities!