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Animal Investigator

Explore the animals that live near you with an animal tracking scavenger hunt on your next outdoor adventure. What animal has been here? Use scats, tracks, and other animal signs to find out!

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Plan

  • What materials do you need for the activity?
  • What animal signs might you see?
  • How will you stay safe in this activity?

Do

  • Grab your notebook and pens!
  • As a Section, write down a list of animal signs that you think you will see, or that you’d like to see. This makes it easy to check off as you go!
  • Set out on your outdoor adventure and see what you find.
  • You can write or draw what you see to help you remember!
  • Special tip – you may want to bring a ruler to measure some of your tracks and help with identification.
  • As a Section, discuss what you saw. How many animal signs did you find? How many animals had been around?

Review

  • What animal signs did you find?
  • What was your favourite part of this adventure?
  • What might you do differently next time?

Materials

  • Notebook
  • Pens
  • Ruler (optional)

Keep it Simple

  • Keep it simple by playing What Would an Animal Do? to learn a bit more about how animals move around first - this might make it easier to identify their tracks!

Take it Further

  • Take this further with a full-day adventure to catch more animal signs. Grab your binoculars and add bird-spotting to the list. You just might catch some animals in real-time!