Character Photo Scavenger Hunt

Model: 4-H, Livestock, Sports, Youth-at-Risk, Workforce, School, Community
Key Words: Trustworthiness, Respect, Responsibility, Fairness, Caring, Citizenship
Age Group: 12-18 year old
Preparation Time: Time to gather supplies and develop pictures
Planned Time: At least two sessions
Materials Needed: Cameras, film, posterboard, scavenger sheets, lots of space

People who are practicing good character are all around us. In this activity, youth learn to recognize "signs of character" and implement practices.

Activity: Ask a group of students to identify a list of character words. Have the students think of examples of good behavior for each character word, such as voting for citizenship, picking up trash as respect, and babysitting (responsibility). The adult leader can provide additional character words as needed (http://fcs.tamu.edu/tbc/).

Divide participants into groups of 4 or 5. Give each group a camera and scavenger sheets that list character words (and behaviors, if desired).
Tell the students that they are to take pictures of individuals/groups which are exhibiting certain character traits. Give each group the same traits to take pictures of such as trust, kindness, honesty, fairness, and responsibility. If this activity is done as a competition, set an amount of time that the students have to complete the activity and return the cameras and film to the leader.

Discussion: At the next session, the students will arrange their pictures onto poster board. Students can work as one group or several groups to produce the best possible poster for each character word. Be sure to have groups talk about behavior they saw that did NOT fit into good character.

Variation: The students can scan these pictures into a computer and produce a power point presentation or have pictures developed as slides for a slide show. Pictures could be given to a local station and spots could be produced for evening news. NOTE: Leader will need to check with Extension to see what permission forms need to be completed.

Submitted by: Kinann Sage, CEA Family and Consumer Sciences
County: McLennan